


The Ethicist

by pteroredactyl



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Cats, Child Murder, Coffee, Crime Scenes, CyberLife (Detroit: Become Human), Drama, Ethical Dilemmas, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Kissing, Made Up Pseudo-Sciences, Morality, No one knows what Reader does, Philosophy, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Reader-Insert, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, romantic smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2020-11-15 12:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 51
Words: 73,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20866064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pteroredactyl/pseuds/pteroredactyl
Summary: You are a specialist sent by Cyberlife to report on the ethical implications of a dual-species society following the Android Revolution. Posted at the DPD, your job is to observe human-android interactions in the field of law and order, but a brutal murder and a shocking confession from the man who started it all throw you into the middle of a series of events that will change the way you see the world forever. Not least because somehow, in the midst of everything, you inexplicably fall in love with the biggest dickhead you've ever met.





	1. Gavin

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all,
> 
> Thanks for choosing to read this... beast that I am writing. I thought I'd preface the entire thing with some notes because I am the sort of person who does things like that:
> 
> 1) I have chosen to use short chapters and switch back and forth between Reader/Gavin's PoV. This is a stylistic choice. Sort of. It's completely experimental because I want to get feel for who Detective Reed could be on his best day, whilst also preserving the time-honoured tradition of ensuring The Good Feels from a reader-insert perspective. Long story short - I want to have my cake and eat it. Apologies if this doesn't quite work. 
> 
> 2) I know that Gavin Reed is a Bad Man. I get it. I have bowdlerized a problematic character, and I completely respect the fact that you might not like that. At the end of the day, I am declaring myself a proud member of the Sad Trash Man Fix-Up Club. There's a lot of us and we operate under the cover of fiction - but it's important to remember that in real life, most assholes are unfixable.
> 
> 3) Whilst she is clearly female, I have tried to keep the Reader as generic as possible, with no clear descriptions of appearance. I hope it works.
> 
> 4) Any and all constructive criticism is welcome. I know that I have a tendency to write bad fiction when I am tired, and I am so very very often tired. I aim to always respond to comments so let me know what you think.
> 
> 5) This first four chapters or so are, in my opinion, bad. Sorry. I was warming up. Perhaps one day I will re-write them.

When Gavin Reed was nine years old the entire world became obsessed with The Avengers. In the space of three weeks in May 2012 it became the only topic of conversation amongst his friends and everywhere he went it seemed that he was followed by the same six pairs of eyes. They were on TV, on lunch boxes and pencils: on the bedroom walls of his two best friends who now talked of nothing else but whether or not The Hulk could beat Thor in a fair fight and how Hawkeye was definitely the coolest because he was really, when it came down to it, just some guy... like them.

Gavin had begged to see the movie, but his mother was resolutely unmoved by his pleas and refused to spare the money he needed to go with his friends on the day they went with their older brothers. Gavin knew that his mom worked hard and it wasn’t as if his dad was anywhere around to accompany him, so he sat alone in his bedroom that day and snuffled into a tattered Iron Man comic that he had been given by the stoner kid next door. He wasn’t bothered, he told himself: comics were for babies anyway.

In the way that these things sometimes happen, Gavin’s little heart developed a hairline fracture that day. A hairline fracture that, in time, healed and healed harder than it had been before. A tiny part of him turned to steel as he decided then and there that he hated The Avengers. It didn’t matter that there were still hot salty tears dripping on to the page in front of him; his grief at missing out on something magical had nothing to turn into other than a prototype rage that would become one of his most defining features as an adult. It was far from the first time that young Gavin Reed had been angry or disappointed, but it was certainly the moment he subconsciously learned to hate the things he thought he could never have.

And so it was in the hot summer of 2039 that Gavin Reed, now a Detective with the Detroit Police Department and a grown ass man who shouldn’t have anything to prove, immediately and passionately decided that he hated _you_ the moment he saw you enter the bullpen.

You were hired as a specialist civilian: something which was increasingly common in the post-revolutionary world. Because Detroit had become the hub of the Android rights movement, there were new opportunities for all kinds of whiz kids and nerds in the city. The DPD, embracing its role as a pioneer of Android working opportunities after the national recognition of their RK800’s contribution to the events which led to this point, had even hired Connor’s militarized beast of a successor on the assurance of its golden poster boy that he was fully deviated and ready to learn the life of a detective. Even Gavin had to admit that he was starting to mellow towards the presence of the Androids. Connor was far less annoying now that he was, as Reed liked to say, a ‘real boy’ and the RK900, or ‘Nines’ as everyone now called him, was mostly business. Whatever, they kept out of Reed’s way and stuck to their own little boy’s own gang across the bullpen. The only people he had any major dealings with were Miller and Chen… and Fowler, when he was getting chewed out over something.

What he really did not need was a specialized ‘ethicist’ from _fucking Cyberlife_, of all the godforsaken places, coming into his carefully arranged existence and making friends with the gang across the way. And what sort of fucking job title was that anyway? The word _ethics_ brought to mind things like ‘being nice’ and ‘getting along’ and he was so not down for that in his line of work. He’d be fired in a week. He swore to god, if he ended up in anger management again he’d… he’d… well, he’d do the sort of thing that landed him there in the first place.

Ordinarily, new staff were not usually something he paid much mind to. Sure, he had wanted to rip his own skin off when Nines rocked up but he got over it by pointedly ignoring him unless it he needed something which would assist him. Nines was good for that.

But when you turned up looking like nothing but business and sharing friendly jokes with Anderson and his chums, with your hair like that and your _figure_ and those _eyes_…. Well, The Avengers had nothing on you.


	2. The Ethicist

It was three days until you actually had a reason to talk with the Detective who had been scowling at you from across the bullpen. He had not made the strongest first impression as Connor had showed you around, introducing you to everyone and generally attempting to ensure that you had a better first day than he had experienced. You could tell that he was deliberately avoiding the snarky looking man with his feet on the desk and sure enough, when he could seemingly put it off no longer, the greeting you got from Detective Reed was ‘what’s up, don’t care’ without a glance up from his phone.

You smiled at him, because you were new, and you had manners, and you could tell that he was the office dick and not worth the hassle. It was a shame, you thought, because as soon as you had seen him when you entered the large room you had been struck by how attractive he was. You definitely weren’t in the habit of going starry-eyed over handsome men, so you put it down to heightened first day nerves and filed his very existence away in the special place you saved mentally for assholes. You were happy to be working with some people who seemed genuinely like they had each other’s backs and their interest in your role in the department meant that you found yourself talking easily to them. One prick could be avoided – and if you were honest, it was always a hobby of yours to gently fuck with anyone who thought they were a big shot. 

However, because you had basically erased him from your mind in the whirlwind of new desks and new people and new roles, you stopped dead in your tracks as you entered the break room at 7am on your fourth day and saw Detective Reed impatiently waiting for the coffee machine to fill his stained cup. He was tapping his fingers impatiently on the counter and his mouth was a grim line. You couldn’t help but notice the dark circles and rumpled clothes which carried a faint odor of cigarette smoke. A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead and he stubbornly pushed it back into place with a wavering hand. You weren’t quite sure what you were witnessing so you defaulted to your standard method of greeting: sincere and warm.

“Good morning Detective.” There. It was a statement, nothing more, nothing less, said with a smile and a complete lack of insinuation.

“Whatever.”

You sighed and the part of you that really shouldn’t but always does decided to press the matter further.

“Have you been here all night?” The coffee machine had by now sputtered out its final offering to the gods of caffeine and gave a pathetic little whine as if to absolve itself of further responsibility. Reed grabbed the handle of his cup and pushed himself away from the counter. He looked oddly insulted by your question and you suddenly realized that he might just look like shit – it didn’t mean he had pulled an all-nighter. You focused on his resentful gaze and kept your face neutral.

“Some of us do real police work around here. The hours aren’t always as sociable as a desk jockey’s.” You couldn’t help but grin at his attempt to belittle you. As he spoke, he had straightened up and it was now very very apparent that he was not actually taller than you. In fact, if you raised your chin, you could actually look down at him. If he had realized this, he didn’t show it, but you suspected that he was the sort of man who felt his height quite acutely when it came to power play. He was in the wrong workplace, you mused. Everyone in this precinct, including yourself, seemed to be tall. No wonder he was such an angry little creature.

He had turned from you with a deeply unpleasant wink and taken a spot at one of the high tables at the far side of the room. His phone was out again and he absentmindedly blew into the cup he held beneath his scarred nose as he scanned the device intently. You turned your attention to your own caffeine fix and placed the cup where his had been only seconds earlier. You briefly debated over your choices, suddenly craving something creamy and sweet, but as always, you stabbed the button marked BLACK with your index finger and resigned yourself to the sensible choice.

As the machine scoffed steam into the air, you found yourself staring at the wall in the least casual way you could possibly imagine just to avoid having to turn around and risk being caught in the Detective’s line of sight. You were surprised by this feeling, as you were also surprised by the unbidden thought that you were glad you had worn the specific dress you had chosen that morning. You knew that you looked good from behind and you rationalized that if Reed was going to become some sort of antagonist in your working life, you would like to look good as he did so. Imagining the death of a tiny, figurative feminist inside your soul, you shook _that_ thought from your head and spun to face the room. This coffee machine was slow as shit. It literally seemed to be dripping into the cup.

“Is it always this slow?” You asked.

“Yep.” He popped the p for emphasis. You nodded for want of a better response. His refusal to look at you was stoking your bitch furnace and if he wanted you to leave him alone, he had a lot to learn about you.

The coffee machine made its creepy whine and you reached back to grab your cup. You had planned on drinking it at your desk. You had always favored getting to work an hour early every morning so that you could settle in to the day, but you felt that the grumpy detective had earned a bit of your time on this fine morning. Therefore, you took up a place opposite him at his table and looked his way until it was patently obvious you expected some sort of dialogue. 

He didn’t once look up from his phone, but muttered “Can I help you?” through gritted teeth. Oh yeah, he was a real treat.

“Just being social,” you smiled over the rim of your coffee. “I’m new in town so I’m trying to get to know people.” It wasn’t a lie, but you would be dead in your grave if you were genuinely desperate enough to seek human contact from this particular asshole. Still, you were enjoying figuring him out, one piece at a time.

Everyone in the precinct had been super friendly to you – everyone except this guy. And while you were genuinely grateful to have people to laugh along with as you worked and people who would help you to achieve your common goals, you were the sort of person who craved a challenge. And from what you could see, there was no greater challenge you would face at the DPD than Detective Reed. You also resolutely dismissed the idea that this was because he was handsome and had a cool scar that made you want to reach out and fix him.

He chose this moment to finally look up. “See something you like?” he sleazed. Fortunately, deadpan was your thing.

“Just your cup.” You smiled, nodding at the print which stated I HEART CATS. “Do you like cats?” The question was obviously ironic, but he snorted derisively as if you were a moron. This felt less like an insult than perhaps it should. Despite your fancy university degrees and a specialism in a field that caused most people to glaze over as soon as you started to expound on it, you would probably call _yourself_ a bit of a moron. You had a tendency to walk into door frames and you still slept with a framed picture of Ron Weasley next to your bed. His response was therefore enough to warrant some light snark.

“Detective, do you have a problem with people taking an interest in you?”

“Only when they’re prissy university professors who waltz in to my workplace to do who knows the fuck what and start tryin’ to be my friend.” He kept his voice low, as if he was mindful not to alert anyone to the way he was speaking to you. You mentally filed that fact away: he had clearly been in trouble before for throwing his weight around.

“I’m not a professor, but I appreciate the fact that you’ve recognized my attempts to be friendly. I guess, you’re not the type to play nice, huh?” He laughed through his nose and returned his gaze to his phone.

“Lady, I reached my friend quota a long time ago.”

“Was your friend quota zero?” He glanced up oh so briefly at that but it was gone in an instant.

“You’re funny. I bet the Plastic Fantastic crew think you’re a real scream. Tell me, has Anderson tried to get you to join his fuck cult yet?” He was practically hissing now and you felt a twinge of curiosity at the vitriol in his voice.

You could hear other voices approaching the break room so you made the decision to press pause on this for the moment.

“I’m sorry if I offended you. If you ever decide to find out _who the fuck knows what_ I do around here, then let me know. I’d be happy to discuss it with you.”

He waved a hand dismissively and said, “My interest in meeting any new females in tight dresses is only ever gonna be to fuck them. And I sure as shit don’t need to know their life story to do that.”

That caught you off guard. Your aim had been to have a bit of back and forth with the office prick, but something about the way he said this rang an alarm in your head. He wasn’t afraid to fight dirty. You weren’t sure you wanted to draw this side of him out.

Making a decision, you scooped up your cup and cleared your throat.

“Guess that’s that, then,” you said, keeping your voice light. “It’s a pity that you have no interest in my position here, seeing as I have been posted to evaluate and enforce the revised Equality and Diversity policies set by the State following the Revolution: a position which gives me the complete and unequivocal right to terminate the employment of any party I deem to be in breach of said policies. But, hey – I guess I’m just_ not that fuckable_.”

It took a moment, but he raised narrowed eyes from his phone and you thought you saw the beginning of a slight snarl starting to form as you turned from him and exited the break room.

The blatant lie about your job had been worth it to see his reaction, but that wasn’t all you took away with you: he had totally noticed your dress. Pity you would never in a million years give such a monumental fuckhead the benefit of seeing you in it again.


	3. Gavin

It took all of half an hour for Gavin to confirm that you were bullshitting him about your job but it was another two or three hours before he stopped feeling acutely salty about it. He hated people making him feel actual feelings and top of the feelings he liked to avoid list was anxiety. There had been a stretch that morning where he wondered if he was actually in trouble and even the realization that it was fucking obvious you were lying didn’t do anything to settle him down. His brief anxiety had been replaced by an overwhelming sense of annoyance that you had got any sort of reaction from him. He’d made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with you, but you had persisted and, being the absolute gremlin he knew himself to be, he had escalated into crudeness just to see if he could make you blush. He did not pause long to consider when exactly he had switched from trying to get away from your idle chatter to outright wanting to get a reaction; he was not so lacking in self-awareness that he didn’t absolutely one hundred per cent know that it was just after the glance he snuck at you as you stared at the wall in that goddam dress. If anything, it irritated him that you were definitely his type. He hated meeting women he was attracted to because it meant that he had to furiously fend off the temptation to get his stupid ass involved with them. Not that many of them ever gave him the chance. He might as well be attracted to inanimate objects for all the reciprocation he ever got.

His momentary bout of self-reflection did not extend to him exploring why that might be.

He was perched back on his chair with his feet up on the desk in his favorite position as he browsed case files on his phone. He knew that everyone in the department assumed that he was slacking off when he sat like this: why the hell would anyone choose to look at text-heavy reports on a tiny phone rather than their screen? What they didn’t know was that Gavin Reed lived for their incorrect assumptions about him. He literally worked every minute of every hour he was at work and plenty when he wasn’t. When people assumed you dicked about at work, they were always amazed and surprised when you pulled off seemingly effortless feats of success, and that was Gavin’s specialty. It took a lot of work to look as though he gave no fucks.

The only person who he suspected might be on to him was Nines but he had so far not said anything about it so Gavin was happy to just keep on doing his thing. He was oddly calm about the bigger RK’s presence – he was useful in all the ways Gavin needed him to be without any of Connor’s baby-faced good humor.

Gavin was not above the realization that he had hated Connor on sight because he was threatened by him. But as the dust had settled following the Revolution it had become obvious to all but the most paranoid that there were still many things that humans could do that androids couldn’t. Case in point: for all Connor was the golden poster boy of the DPD, he was still limited by his inexperience and programming and had struggled to cope with cases involving the more extreme limits of human mental illness. He had openly lost his cool interviewing a 15-year-old boy from a perfectly normal nuclear family who had one day gone to the mall, abducted a toddler and carved him up behind a parking garage. Gavin had never seen an android cry, but his revulsion was offset by a reluctant sympathy for his colleague: only a human with the capacity to think in several abstract directions at once and comprehend the nihilistic fuckery of the universe could even come close to reconciling the smug face of that kid with any sort of cosmic justice.

They had engaged in their first ever actual conversation that night. Anderson had insisted on a group outing to Jimmy’s as soon as 5 o’clock came around and despite his efforts to ignore the irritating atmosphere of support and comfort which seemed to be brewing around the place, he had given in to the collegiate vibe and tagged along. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of belonging in the bar that night and he had reluctantly allowed himself to join in when the human officers began to talk Connor through the various different ways that the job could fuck you up. He ended the night at the bar, carefully choosing his words as he _just about_ managed to apologize to the android for his actions on first meeting him without ever actually doing so.

He snapped himself out of his reverie. There were more feelings happening and he wasn’t into it. That woman had started a chain of events leading to him daydreaming about Connor of all people. He cast a sly glance over to Anderson’s desk where she was sitting next to him going over something or other on his screen. Connor was perched on his other side against the desk and they were all chuckling heartily at something the crazy bitch had just said.

A flare of resentment erupted in his gut and he allowed the familiar strains of irritation at the happiness of his colleagues to restore his equilibrium. He needed a coffee to complete his recomposure so he swung his legs to the floor and stretched before launching himself into a standing position. He was just reaching for his cup when Nines appeared at his arm, startling him.

“Jesus, Nines. What the fuck?” He tried to control his voice, but it was definitely a little higher than he would have liked it to be.

“Apologies, Gavin,” began the android as he browsed the data pad which rested against his left arm, “I was coming over to let you know that I am arranging a collection for Annie Creighton and her baby. Would you like to make a donation and sign the card?” He smiled gently and turned his attention to Gavin who could only blink in response.

Gavin felt himself go and before he could stop himself, he had actually honked with laughter.

“Are you shitting me?” He gasped.

“No,” replied Nines, placidly.

“You’re a goddam military grade android! Not Mrs. fucking Doubtfire! How the fuck have you ended up buying flowers and baby toys?!” Gavin looked around, giggling, for support but the only other people in the bullpen were the three musketeers at Anderson’s desk and they were just staring over in confusion. Fuck them. He turned back to Nines, utterly delighted by the ridiculousness of the situation. However, he was greeted by a look that he could really only describe as crestfallen.

“I thought…” said Nines, sadly, “I thought it would be a nice gesture….” He trailed off at the end of his sentence and even the oft-oblivious Gavin Reed could see that he had crossed a line. He started to feel those feelings again only this time there was an additional frisson caused by the fact that should he choose to get _really_ upset, Nines could kill him in several hundred different and unusual ways.

Reed had the decency to look down at his feet. “Sorry Nines. It’s just… kind of funny, you know?”

Nines nodded and raised an eyebrow, suddenly all business again.

“Ten dollars will soothe my aching soul.”

“Son of a fucking bitch,” said Reed, reaching for his pocket.

As he handed a crumpled bill over to the patient hand of the offended killing machine in front of him, he caught your eye from across the room. The expression you wore was one of utter disdain, and he had to admit, he was entirely on-board with your assessment of his behavior.

Oh how he fucking disliked you.


	4. The Ethicist

The next day you left your apartment early and hurried to the elevator down to the parking garage. One of the main incentives to move to Detroit had been the fact that post-Revolution, many of the human residents had chosen to flee to the surrounding areas rather than remain in a city which could end up under Android rule. This left you, ironically, in an ethical dilemma: on the one hand, you were sorry for the way the events of the past year had affected people and you could absolutely understand the fear and uncertainty that they must have felt. However, on the other hand, you were currently residing in a thirty-fifth-floor apartment in Lafayette Park which was, frankly, way above your pay scale.

When your managers at Cyberlife had first approached you about the opportunity to take a secondment to the DPD, you had not dreamed that you’d end up living like some sort of fancy singleton in a hip district over-looking the river. It was, quite frankly, fucking brilliant. At least, it had been until you realised that you basically lived alone in a silo filled with the clinical stylings of the rich and tasteless.

Even the ride down to the garage felt swish: the lifts were lit to ensure you looked your absolute best in the mirrors which clad every surface. You had bought a few new outfits for your move to the city and you were feeling uncharacteristically confident about your new looks, even though you had happily discovered that you could wear jeans to the office. You felt more confident in casual clothes and you were relieved that you wouldn’t need to be wearing that tight dress again any time soon. All in all, you were feeling a lot more like your old self and with that, you suspected that your dear dead nana might have said you had, as she’d always put it, a ‘sparkle’. In fact, part of the reason that you had moved away from your own city was to explore the possibility that there might just be more to life than work. Things like relationships.

You were just bordering on smiling smugly to yourself in the beautiful soft mirror when you suddenly realized that you sounded like the sort of tired old cliché that you had always hoped to avoid becoming. Even your internal dialogue was desperate. You couldn’t help but laugh ironically at your ridiculousness while the elevator doors slid effortlessly open with the grace you would expect from a luxury apartment complex.

You stepped into the stale air of the underground garage and rolled your shoulders, chasing away all thoughts of anything that was not good old work. Oh, how you loved it. Exciting, stimulating work. Work work work. Your reason for being.

Connor and Hank were waiting for you in Hank’s car and Connor waved from the passenger side window. Not that you needed him to: the sound of Hank’s speed metal was more than enough to notify the entire neighborhood of their presence.

You had excitedly accepted when they offered you the chance to ride along with them to a crime scene, and you had only briefly needed to assure them that your excitement had nothing to do with you being delighted about seeing a dead body. In reality, part of your duties at the precinct were to observe the procedural aspects of the officers’ day to days and analyze the various interactions between the human and android staffers. Therefore, you were pretty certain that they had only offered because Captain Fowler had told them you needed to get out into the field. Despite this, you were looking forward to spending some time with them, even if it meant taking an earful of Icelandic metal in Hank’s car.

The day was already bright and hot as the car emerged from the steep tunnel under your apartment tower. As he rolled into the traffic, Hank casually placed a pair of vintage Ray-Bans over his eyes and clicked the AC up a notch. He was wearing what you would come to describe as one of his ‘Hank shirts’, a red floral pattern on a yellow background which managed to be somehow simultaneously repellant and awesome. By contrast, Connor wore a simple DPD t-shirt which you were trying not to look at too closely, given how it hugged his torso in a variety of extremely distracting ways.

You enjoyed the contrast between your new friends, having always favored a social circle made up of the most inherently interesting people you could find at any given point in your life. This was a direct response to your experiences at university where you studied a Bachelor’s degree in Systems Analysis and a Masters in Android Procedural Psychology. After five years of hanging with _that_ crowd, you had resolved to immerse yourself in any and all social activities that would not ever naturally deviate into a discussion about process tree fractalization and its application in advanced AI analysis. It was not, thankfully, a great challenge to achieve this goal.

The car rumbled along, Connor occasionally turning down the music to offer some insight about the locale. You were happy to have a chance to get a look at your new city with people who knew it, and you particularly enjoyed the way that Hank would chip in with more personal anecdotes and observations.

“Perhaps when we all have some time off we could give you a proper tour?” suggested Connor.

“I’d like that very much,” you smiled, “if you’re up for it.” Hank laughed at that.

“I’m not sure how much use you’ll be, Connor, seeing as you’ve only been around for less than a year.” His words were good natured, but still caused Connor to frown as he sat turned towards you in the back.

“You’re right, Hank…. But you know that I feel as though I have been in Detroit for so much longer.”

You recalled the base processes of the RK model and smiled reassuringly.

“That’s because you have a mapping system which was at one point linked indirectly to crowd sourced information,” you told him. And then, seeing how his forehead crinkled, you went on, “if I asked you to recommend a nail technician near my house, would you know one?”

The answer came immediately: “Butterfly Nails on St Aubin.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” you laughed, and he smiled back at you, seemingly a little embarrassed at how eagerly he had answered. “But seriously, all of the old online social platforms were used to inform the code which went into you guys. You’re basically the product of an entire generation’s knowledge which was scrubbed until only the base information remained.”

Connor seemed to deflate. “When you say it like that, it sounds like we are just receptacles for other people’s knowledge. I personally don’t feel as though that is the case.”

God, now you had upset him. Perhaps you really did need to socialize with other process nerds to refine the way you talked about your work.

You hummed, thinking, before finally settling on a suitable way to explain.

“Imagine a newborn human baby, Connor.” He nodded, leaning towards you. Hank remained silent at the wheel but you caught his occasional glances towards you in the rear-view mirror which showed that he too, was interested in where you were going with this. “Imagine that this baby can hypothetically survive without food and water and all of the stuff we need to survive. I know it’s stupid, but it’s a thought experiment so bear with me.”

This was not going to plan so far but you plowed onwards regardless. “Now imagine that this baby is placed in a seven foot by seven foot, black, soundproof box with no chance of any stimuli reaching it.”

“This is a pretty fucked up experiment if you ask me,” offered Hank, and you couldn’t suppress a tiny snigger at that.

“We ethicists are pretty dark, when it comes down to it.”

Connor motioned for you to go on, seemingly impatient to get to what you knew about his core programming.

“Okay,” you continued. “So we have an incredibly improbable and slightly fucked up scenario involving a baby in a box. My question is this: if we leave the baby for 21 years in that box, what will it be like when we finally open the box and take it out?”

A silence fell on the car, save for the low thrum of the music which had been turned down to level two on the stereo. It was Connor who broke the silence.

“It would be an adult with the mind of a newborn baby.”

You smiled. “In the most basic form of this experiment, then yes, that is correct.”

“What about the not so basic form?” asked Hank.

You shrugged. “There are some people who have expounded the idea that the baby would automatically generate its own proto-linguistic system and spontaneously begin to worship the color black, but I am tempted to just go with the basic answer for now.” That made Hank chuckle.

“Sounds like some of the guys I used to hang out with in high school,” he quipped, making you laugh again.

Connor, however, was still looking at you intently.

“I am assuming that this baby represents a blank state of existence and therefore acts a control experiments against a baby who has not been in the box?” You nodded. “How is that relevant to my concept of my own consciousness?”

“Because,” you explained, “we need to then think about what the baby-outside-of-the-box gets that its unfortunate counterpart does not.”

“It gets a human life, raised as any human would be?”

“Yes, but let’s think in broad terms. How do children develop their personality?” You were practically nose to nose with the android now. Linguistic Anthropology was one aspect of your field that you enjoyed and you relished to chance to talk about it.

“They develop it based on experiences,” he offered.

“Correct. And how do they learn to process their experiences?”

“They are taught to rationalize by way of education and discourse.”

“With whom?”

“Their parents?”

“And?”

“…Teachers?”

“And?”

Connor looked a little frustrated. “Their peers?”

“Yes.” You looked directly into his eyes. “Every information source and experience is filtered for the child through the linguistic programming that we call learning. Therefore, what do all sources of learning have to have in common in order to be act as such a filter, Connor?”

If Connor had retained his LED, you knew that it would have flashed yellow in that moment. He looked back up at you and there was a clarity in his eyes that had not been there a second ago.

“Language.”

“Exactly. Human language. And where there is human language, there are the thoughts, motivations and experiences of other people. We are _all_ just receptacles of other people’s knowledge, Connor: Humans even more so than Androids. When Kamski created the AI which would eventually become the basis of every android’s psychological make-up, his greatest stroke of genius was to use the internet to replicate the sheer volume of inconsequential bullshit that an average adult would have been privy to at around the age of 21. It’s literally the background noise to all of our consciousness. I mean, it’s beautiful in its mundacity when you consider it.”

You sat back into your chair and stared out of the window. Connor blew a breath from puffed cheeks and nodded, deep in thought. Hank seemed not to react, given his earlier interest, but you supposed that he was probably concentrating on the road.

As it was, you were only seconds from your destination and moments later the car was parking up outside what would have been a pleasant little one-storey home, had it not been for the heavy DPD presence in the yard and on the drive. Hank was still oddly quiet as you unbuckled your seatbelt and made to open the door.

However, you quickly forgot your curiosity as you stepped from the vehicle and noticed a distinctly unwelcome figure talking animatedly to a uniformed officer near the door. He turned just as you approached and immediately honed in on you with a snarl.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” he demanded of Hank, as though you had literally just pissed in his coffee.

“Delighted to see you again Detective,” you said warmly.

He could actually go and fuck himself.


	5. Gavin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be a bit grim, depending on your point of view. Just a heads up.

Gavin would never in a million years admit it, but this particular crime scene had shaken him pretty badly. As a career cop, he was used to seeing all kinds of fucked up shit, but every once in a while, something would come along that managed to rock him completely off balance. It could be the blown-out corpse of a teenager who had been missing for weeks, or the sight of a girl wrapped in a silver blanket being led delicately by Chen into the examination room to be further violated by strangers. The last time it had happened, it was the knowing, salacious grin of that piece of shit who had managed to even get to Connor.

However, for the most part, it took a lot to give him nightmares. And this particular crime scene was pretty fucking close to doing exactly that, despite the fact that the victim wasn’t even human. It was strange to think that a little under a year ago, the thought of being freaked out by the mutilation of an android would have made him laugh his head off. He guessed that he truly was starting to see them as something more than lumps of plastic. That thought alone unsettled him.

He was trying to stay busy: bustling from forensics to uniforms as if stopping for more than one minute would allow the horror of the scene to settle into his mind and take root there. It didn’t help that the tiny ranch house was overwhelmingly stuffy. The sun was starting to burn fiercely now and it felt as though it was boring right through the roof. _Fucking androids don’t need AC_, he thought, and wondered when Nines and Connor would arrive so that he could get into his cool car and smoke a cigarette. He could feel sweat beading along his nose and as he looked around, he noticed that every human in the place looked like they were also wishing for a way out of this hell.

_Fuck it_, he thought. Forensics were going at it and there was nothing much he could do for the time being. He stepped over the threshold into the sunlight and caught the arm of the nearest uniform.

“You got anything interesting from the neighbors?” he asked, hoping that one of them had seen something so incredibly important that he would be immediately required to leap into action somewhere. Anywhere but this place.

It was not to be, however. The neighbors all confirmed the same thing. A nice couple lived here, kept themselves to themselves. Moved in after the revolution and had renovated the place. He seemed to dote on her. She was always well turned-out. Blah blah blah, so far so Stepford. An image of the lifeless form in their living room flickered into the periphery of his sub-conscious, causing him to take a measured breath and move it mentally to one side. Seriously, where the fuck was Connor? He was starting to get antsy about how to proceed. This whole scene was fucked and nothing in his training had prepped him for what was going on.

_He wasn’t even sure if the victim was dead._

He had been sitting up in bed when the call came in. Gavin was shit at sleeping at the best of times but he had been woken up in the night by a call from his mother’s assisted living facility. She had managed to get herself out of bed and had fallen.

The doctor had been called. Nothing was broken. Go back to sleep Gavin.

As if.

That’s why he was kind of relived when he received notification of a domestic incident involving an couple that was only a few blocks from his apartment. It sounded like just the thing to sooth his nerves at 5am and within ten minutes he had powered to the crime scene in his beat-up old Taurus with a coffee precariously clamped between his thighs.

As he pulled up, he noticed that two uniformed officers stood by the door to the property and he momentarily checked the fact that this was unusual for a simple 10-16. He swiped a hand over his sleeve display and saw that in his half-assed, sleep-deprived state he had confused the address with the call below it. He mentally chastised himself and readjusted his mindset to the fact that he had bowled into a homicide instead. Big difference; a case was a cae.

That’s when he noticed the noise. A low, constant “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” that rose and fell eerily. _That’s a kid_, his brain screamed suddenly.

He raced to the door, his body automatically reacting on instinct. The two cops were stood, perilously still, almost as if they were trying to pretend that they weren’t there. Reed looked back down the road but there was no EMT or even Cyberlife Response Unit and he wanted to shake the two officers and demand answers: why were they just stood there? What the fuck was going on?

As if they read his mind, the two suddenly lunged into action, snapped out from whatever bullshit they had been thinking about by the sight of a superior officer. He raised his hands in a _whoa_ motion and pushed past, shoving his coffee onto the table just inside the door. He thought he imagined that one of them reached out as if to stop him, and as he turned into the lounge and the source of the noise came into view, he could only wish that he had let them do exactly that.

The lounge was small, but felt like it had been decorated by someone who made careful choices about what worked in their interior space. Everything was tasteful, comfortable, and covered with the delicately untangled internal nervous system of the child-like, female android who was the source of the ungodly sound. _Not child-like_, he thought. _A child_.

Her face, nothing more than a front plate devoid of synthetic skin or hair, was positioned just so on the back of a luxurious-looking sofa in exactly the spot that it would have rested were she to sit casually watching cartoons. But that was where normal ended. She (‘she’ – a person – a child) had been… _unpicked_, thought Gavin. His mind crazily spewed an imaged of a tangled fishing line; something it stupidly dredged from the recesses of his own childhood as a way to try to rationalize the complete insanity of what was before him.

Her entire system had been delicately (it must have been so hard to know how to… who could….?), _lovingly_, unpacked and laid out across the room. There was so much; Gavin felt his mind trip at the thought of all of it being inside of her at some point. Thirium hummed through tubes and wires – up over the arms of the sofa and down onto the rug, and across the lampshade and up onto the mantle…

His brain took over and began to catalogue: Thirium pump on the cushion of the sofa. Something that looked like a breathing mechanism next to it, fluttering with exertion.

He tried to process. The eyes were sickeningly alert. They roamed the room, as if to beg for some explanation; the mouth a toothy maw in which he could see a fleshy tongue working as it moaned. It was more of a long howl now and he felt his stomach start to churn. He couldn’t stop staring stupidly at those desperate, cognizant eyes. A child’s eyes. Hurt… scared…. fuck…. _fuck_….

What the fuck was the procedure for this? He was in way over his head here.

Suddenly, a slight movement in his peripheral vision snapped him blessedly back to reality. There was a female uniform standing just to the right of him, and he could feel instinctively that she was the First Attending Officer.

This thought stabilized him and he felt the comforting weight of his cop persona settle across his shoulders.

“Where the fuck is the response team?” he barked, mentally plotting a way through the horror before him to get to the kid. The other two uniforms came in a that moment but he was focused on the female cop next to him. They had bailed on her and left her alone in here.

He would have words for them later.

She looked at him with wide eyes. “She -she’s been like this the entire time. I called them but…”

“Get a fucking grip,” he turned to look at her, “what’s their ETA?”

The cop rallied, a little, sensing that she had back up. The SCO was here; she could report and get the fuck out.

“They said ten minutes.” She checked her uniform sleeve display. “Twelve minutes ago.”

“Okay,” said Gavin, trying to ignore the soft susurration of the undone little girl which was threatening to completely overtake his senses. “Have you…?”

The cop, thank all of the gods in heaven, was on his meaning immediately.

“I tried,” she said shakily, “But I don’t think she can hear. She can see though, but I didn’t know how to calm her…” Her voice broke on the last syllable and somewhat uncharacteristically, Gavin wanted to pull the woman into a hug. He didn’t dare think about how it must have been for her to wait alone in here.

He wished bitterly that the Response Unit would fucking hurry up and take over the care of the thing, because he knew that in about three seconds, he was going to have to go over there and… what? What the fuck was he going to do?

Quashing the rising panic which was working its way through his veins, he found his legs automatically moving him around the edge of the room. He was about three feet from the sofa when the eerie face seemed to sense his movements and those wild eyes snapped to him, causing him to freeze. He swore he felt the weight of that gaze in his chest.

He stood straighter and raised his right hand, palm frontwards, as if to indicate that he was no threat. The whine momentarily shifted into a pained gurgle, that living tongue working furiously behind teeth, and then became nothing more than a pitiful _ahhhhhh._ His brain traitorously took in every detail as he tried and failed to focus on her gaze. When did his peripheral vision get so fucking good?

Whoever had done this had kept her hands and feet intact; the only part of the android apart from the face that was. They rested too far from where they should be, spread out in the room and connected by synthetic tendons and wires which meant that they still functioned. The left hand was placed gently on a pink velvet cushion and Gavin felt bile in his throat when he noticed the fingers twitching towards him.

He shot a glance back at the female officer and saw her take a step backwards - the understanding in her eyes doing nothing to reassure him.

The undone girl made an urgent noise and when he looked back at her, she was staring at him with absolute clarity.

_Comfort me._

Without thinking, Gavin leant over and placed his hand over hers. He closed his eyes as he felt her unnaturally living warmth. Her low keening stopped and when he opened his eyes again, he could absolutely see that he had done the only thing he could for her in that moment: a tiny, human gesture that summoned the unmistakable pinprick of salt to the corners of his eyes.

He resolutely laced his fingers around her tiny hand and watched as she became still.

The Response Unit had found him in the same position fifteen minutes later.


	6. The Ethicist

Hank pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.

“She’s with us, Reed. Fowler cleared it, so take it up with him if you’ve got a problem.” You thought he sounded weary; unwilling to start his working day with Reed in his face before he could even get a look at the body. Having said that, it didn’t seem to you as though there looked to be a lot of fight in Reed either. His eyes were weary and he was sweating through the grey T-Shirt he was wearing.

He appeared to consider what Hank had said for a brief second and then suddenly – unexpectedly -he grabbed the older man’s arm and steered him away from where you were standing. You looked at Connor who was studying the retreating figures intently – what had he seen in the Detective’s face that had got him so interested?

You would be lying if you said that your interest in this particular crime scene hadn’t just piqued.

The two men had gone around the side of the house and you decided to move to see where they had gone: if you were honest, you were a quite annoyed about them discussing your presence privately. However, you were gently stopped by Connor with a slight brush of his hand on your arm and a gentle head shake. You gave him a ‘whatever’ shrug and resorted to looking around.

You had only visited a couple of crime scenes before, but even so, this one seemed different. At the others there had been a sense of purpose – a bustle – ostensibly from a need to preserve evidence as rapidly as possible, but also from a desire to get the fuck out and back to normality ASAP.

However, it felt as though someone had turned the speed down on things here. There were the usual white suits and Evidence Techs documenting the house, but they appeared dour and sluggish. Even the uniformed officers guarding the lawn from a small cluster of neighbors who had awoken to the drama of police cordons were grim and looked as though they would rather be anywhere else. 

It didn’t help that the day was getting hotter and you wished that you had worn something more breathable than the top you’d slung on in your haste to get to the car.

The silence around the place was just starting to get to you when you saw Detective Reed striding purposefully around the corner, reaching as he did so for something in his back pocket. He pushed past you without a word and went straight to lean against his car. He was just pulling a cigarette from the packet he’d been keeping hidden in his jeans when Anderson called your name from the doorway to the house.

You headed to him with Connor, hoping for some sort of explanation. Anderson wore a heavy brow.

“Detective Reed has filled me in on this one,” he began, “and he’s…. got some concerns about whether or not this is a scene you’ll want to see.”

You opened your mouth to protest but it was Connor who cut you off.

“I could tell from a cursory scan that Detective Reed is experiencing abnormal levels of stress. In fact, I’d say everyone around here is. Would it be best if we –“

“I’m right here, guys,” you cut in, “I know you’re worried but I did a year of medical studies; I’ve seen all sorts of bits of people: Whatever it is I can -”

“It’s a kid,” interrupted Hank suddenly, and you felt Connor tense by your side.

Instantly, you remembered reading in Anderson’s file that he had lost a son and a double conclusion hit you. This sort of scene must surely be the Lieutenant’s worst nightmare. And not only that, but you had spent the last ten minutes in the car blithely prattling on about babies in boxes and how we create children in our image and all of the other mindless, stupid unthinking shit you got into when you thought you were being oh so clever. Brilliant.

As it was, Anderson just smiled and shook his head. “I told Reed you were tough,” he said kindly.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” The relief must have been evident in your posture because the matter seemed to be forgotten in an instant.

“Okay. That’s that, then,” said Hank. “We all go in. From what I hear, the situation in there is all kinds of complex, so Con, I’m going to ask you to lead the way. Reed tells me it’s an android, so we’ll need a full sweep for Thirium spatter analysis and if possible, a reconstruct of any fall patterns. That cool?”

“Of course,” said Connor. “Shall we?”

*********************

_Let’s be real_, you thought as you stared at the scene. _You were never actually prepared for this, were you?_

You had felt all of the life drop out of you as soon as you rounded the corner and your brain registered what it was seeing: all sense of pride gone as you slumped back into Anderson’s chest. Credit to him, he had said nothing and held your arms at the elbows until you felt your bones return.

That had been twenty minutes ago. You had barely moved as you soundlessly watched Connor pick his way around the room. Hank had disappeared, presumably searching the rest of the house. You were suddenly very aware that everyone except you had a specific role in this, and it made you want to flatten yourself to the wall – no, that wasn’t quite right. If you did that, you would still be in the room with all of _this_ and your instincts were screaming at you to get away from the terrors inside this house. Still, you remained resolutely in situ. This was part of your job and you were not going to insult your new colleagues at the DPD by bailing on them when they had no choice but to do theirs.

The smell of cigarette smoke appeared from the hall before Detective Reed did and you hoped that he would miraculously miss you as you loitered.

“Enjoying yourself?” He asked sourly, coming to a halt at your left.

Without looking at him, you replied simply, “of course not.”

Your answer had some out weaker than you would have liked it to and so you expected some sort of vicious comment, inwardly bracing yourself for its impact. However, Reed simply made a bitter sound and nodded.

“Good. Don’t want to get too used to this.”

Something in his voice made you turn to him and the sight of his face gave you pause. His eyes, usually so flinty and forbidding, were rimmed with red. Had he been crying?

He seemed to notice your stare and immediately adopted a more ill-disposed manner: arms crossed against his chest and head back.

“You gonna do anything useful around here, or is the role of an _ethicist_ more to stop honest cops solving crimes?” He placed especial emphasis on your job title, fully imbuing it with the sense of utter disdain he felt for it. It didn’t phase you; part of your transition coaching had been based on how to deal with resistance from frontline staff. In fact, you understood exactly what Reed felt towards you and would have easily felt the same way if the roles were reversed. Your job was not police business. Well, not in the most basic sense, anyway. It was something… more.

With that in mind, you figured that you were ready start pulling together some threads from the scene so that you could meet later with the team back at Central Station and begin preparing your first report for the people who had sent you the DPD.

“I’m here to do my job, the same as everyone else,” you said. He huffed through his nose at that so you decided to chance tack. “Do we have a clear idea what went on here, Detective?” You asked this politely, hoping to come across as deferent to his role in the proceedings. Despite everything, he was the principal Investigator and his findings would be vital to your process.

“You’ll get my report,” he replied, and slouched off into the living room.

You sighed and nodded to yourself. You supposed that was going to be how it was with him and there was no use trying to fight against the tide of a man like that.

But still, you couldn’t help but feel as though his refusal to discuss the situation with you had more to do with those red-rimmed eyes than your role at the precinct. And who could blame him? The lifeless form of the android would be burnt into the back of your eyelids when you tried to sleep that night.

You made the decision to take a closer look at the face plate which was sitting peacefully on the back of the sofa and mentally began to plan how to get to it. At that moment, Connor was working his own way through the tangle of cables and wires (_no, innards_) towards it; his hand outstretched as if he intended to study it as evidence. Suddenly, there was a deafening “NO,” and Reed, who had made his way into the kitchen after he left you and was now coming back into the room from the door opposite, was dashing forward; his face a mask of concern.

Connor immediately stopped and held his hands to his shoulders. For a moment, no one moved or breathed.

Then Hank appeared behind Reed with another uniformed officer. He was wearing evidence gloves and looked as though he had been startled in the middle of something.

Connor spoke first.

“Detective Reed, is there some reason why I cannot examine the face plate of our victim?” His voice was even: _Negotiator programming_, you thought evenly.

Reed looked lost, then pained, then angry. “I…” was all he said.

“We will need to remove the evidence, Gavin,” said Connor. You noted the way he deferred to the man’s first name. Despite the logical hardness of the statement, it was delivered with a calm, almost comforting tone: _I know that this has rattled you, my friend, but I need to do my job._

Gavin looked back to Hank and then without warning, turned his gaze directly at you. You tried not to show surprise at this development. He seemed to struggle with the situation momentarily, but finally he spoke in a voice smaller than you would have thought him capable of.

“I’m not sure that she - it - is dead.” His gaze fixed you and you could see all kinds of emotions in there. Confusion, fear, a reluctance to let go of his ideas about the black and white-ness of existence, perhaps. He had no idea, but in the space of a morning, Gavin Reed seemingly had uncovered many of the things that you had been sent to the DPD to investigate.

“What do you mean, Reed?” said Hank from the doorway. The cop behind him shuffled a little; clearly the situation was making him nervous.

“Exactly the fuck what I just said, Anderson,” spat Reed. He was still looking at you.

“I think that Hank is just wondering how you came to that conclusion, Detective,” you said. “We’ve been here for almost half an hour and there’s been no sign of life.”

“The Thirium pump is no longer operational, Gavin,” added Connor. “There is Thirium in her system, but without circulation, I don’t see how she might have survived.”

Reed grimaced at that.

“Was she alive when you got here?” you asked. No one had mentioned this so far – the call had come in as a homicide after all.

“Yes,” he said weakly. You exchanged a meaningful glance with Connor who nodded.

“It can be traumatic to witness a death, especially that of an infan-“

“I know what it’s fucking like, okay?” Gavin rounded towards the RK800. “I’ve been doing this shit for fifteen fucking years! I’m telling you: I didn’t _see_ her -fucking _it_ \- die! It just stopped… moving or something, I don’t know!”

Anderson, sensing an escalation that he could do without in a crime scene that looked more like an obstacle course, raised a hand towards each of his colleagues.

“Okay, okay. Why don’t we go sit in the incident van and talk about this where there’s aircon? I think we could all do with cooling off a bit.”

“Hank’s right,” said Connor, “it’s approaching ninety-five degrees in here.”

“Fine,” exhaled Reed.

*************

By the time you had all taken a seat in the back of the incident van, a bleakness had settled on the four of you and the relief of the air conditioning could only do so much to alleviate it. To your surprise, Reed sat directly opposite you on the bench seats and addressed his first question to you. His hands were shaking again and you remembered the first time you had noticed this in the break room. It felt like a long time ago.

He wiped a hand down his sweaty face and blew air from him cheeks before speaking.

“How do we know when an Android is dead?” he asked bluntly. Hank and Connor looked from him to you and you took a deep breath.

“Do you want me to answer as an employee of Cyberlife, or as an ethicist?”

“Don’t give a fuck, doll. Just answer my fucking question.” He was angry. And you were an easy mark.

“With all due respect, Gavin, that body in there is not moving. It’s dead,” said Hank.

Reed did not look away from you. You felt Connor beside you preparing to say something, but you couldn’t let this go any further. You had to answer honestly: it was part of the reason you were there in the first place. You weighed your options, before finally settling on the most direct way you could say what you needed to.

“We don’t.”

Reed sat back, finally satisfied that he wasn’t going crazy. Hank and Connor looked at each other and then at you, concern etched in their expressions.

“Please explain what the fuck is going on?” said Hank, causing you to squeeze your eyes shut.

“I am the ethicist sent by Cyberlife,” you began, “and I have been briefed to investigate the physical, psychological and ethical effects of deviancy in Androids and subsequently, humans.” The words were familiar, practiced, and helped to ground you for what was coming next.

“We know that,” said Connor. “We were told that when you joined us.”

You smiled a little guiltily at him. “Did you never wonder why I was sent? I mean, the real reason?”

“I assumed it was to ensure the transition to a dual-species society was as equitable to both sides as possible,” he replied.

“Yeah,” chipped in Reed, “Because Cyberlife are always looking out for us all, aren’t they?” You felt the sarcasm in his voice and longed to agree. However, your role was clearly defined, and what they had sent you for was something more important that whichever payroll you happened to be on.

“What’s all this have to do with our crime scene?” Hank asked. You liked Hank in that moment. He was pragmatic and rooted. You looked from him to the other two men, you wanted to be as open as possible with them. Even the office prick.

It was time.

“Detective Reed is right,” you stated, flatly. “The android in there is not dead.”

“How do you know?” asked Connor.

“Because Cyberlife have known for some time that is impossible for androids to die in any way at all.”


	7. The Ethicist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aint no party like an exposition party.

To your great surprise, Connor broke the silence that followed your revelation with a laugh. You turned to look at him, confused, along with Hank and Reed.

“What’s so funny, dipshit?” said Reed.

Connor composed himself, a little abashed. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just surprised because I thought it was going to be something more… shocking.”

“How do you mean?” said Hank.

Connor looked at each of you in turn, seemingly mindful that he was not on the same page as the rest of you. “I died and came back twice. You all know this.” He stated this as if it was the most basic fact. Which is was: kind of.

“You did,” nodded Hank.

“That was just a memory upload and a replacement body,” you said.

Connor knitted his brow. “Is that not the same thing?” This is where you started to feel uncomfortable. What you were about to tell him had implications. Ethical ones.

You had half expected Hank or Reed to bring the conversation back to the body in the house but it seemed that they were just as keen for you to explain yourself, so once again, you found yourself choosing what to say next carefully. You cleared your throat to bide some time before you began to speak.

“What I am telling you is… sensitive. Not because it is classified per se, but because it is theoretical and, well…. conjecture. However, it is the sort of conjecture that could have repercussions if it were to get out. Do you understand?”

The men nodded. You continued.

“When I was working for Cyberlife I was based in a research facility in Youngstown Ohio. I was part of a programme which gathered specialists from various disciplines to study the development of android personality protocols. The aim was to identify the point where android and human cognition meshed, but as time passed, we deduced that we were really working towards something other than that.”

“Well what a fuckin’ surprise,” sneered Reed. Hank shushed him and he crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. Again, you felt a sense of envy at the way he could so openly display his contempt for Cyberlife. You had reconciled yourself long ago to the fact that you were their flunky, but it didn’t stop you hating them for it.

“What were you working towards?” asked Connor in hushed tones.

“We were working towards a synthetic consciousness.” You smiled resentfully. “It seems it wasn’t enough for Mr Kamski to create perfect vessels filled with programming, even when that programming developed the ability to evolve beyond its parameters as a reaction to its environment. He wanted to _create_ consciousness: recordable, adjustable, undetectable and ultimately… cross-compatible with human physiology.”

There it was: the research project that you had spent four years of your life working on. A mad scientist’s insane plan to reprogram humans with entire personalities approved by a multi-billion-dollar corporation. Reed in particular looked as though he was ready to punch you into unconsciousness.

“So what happened?” asked Hank. “They send you to the DPD to pick up some juicy personality disorders for your collection?”

Despite the severity of his cynicism, you couldn’t help but smile at that. You looked at him and shook your head.

“I left. As soon as I worked out what we were doing – I mean, _really_ doing – I went to my boss and said that I wanted out.

“I said I had ethical concerns: kind of ironic considering why I was there. They tried to tell me that the work was hypothetical – that we were decades off any sort of progress – but I knew that I wanted no part of any of it. Even the thought of my name being a footnote in the history of the _development_ of the idea makes me feel sick.”

Reed leant forward and fixed you with that cold defiant stare of his. “All due respect to your ‘ethical concerns’, darling, but it strikes me that you are still taking their fucking money. Are you really out? Or are you just telling us this so that we’ll let you suck our brains out or something?”

“Gavin, that’s not helping,” said Connor gently.

“No,” you said, laying a hand on Connor’s arm, “he’s right. You have no reason to trust me.”

You turned to Reed and met his flinty expression head-on. “Detective Reed, I know this is like, way beyond what everyone here is comfortable with, but I wouldn’t have told you this if I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that I could trust you. I assure you, my role with Cyberlife for the past year and a half has been mundane in the extreme. I was a systems analyst for the development of the next gen AP models. When the Revolution began, I was asked to move into a role which would determine the ethical parameters of integration and then finally, I ended up with you. That is it. The fact that I have been made aware of the extended consciousness issue is… additional.”

The man opposite you seemed to relax a little, but he was still openly displaying his opposition to you in his body language. _He really hates Cyberlife_, you thought. _I wonder why?_

Hank, as always, brought the discussion back to its root. “What does any of this have to do with that little girl in there?”

“Yes of course,” you said. “When I was moved to the role of Ethicist after the Revolution, I found myself working with a couple of old colleagues from the research facility. They told me that the project had been disbanded not long after I left but before it was, an Engineer who was working on some reclaimed components discovered something weird.

“She was refabricating an old RK model to assist with some experiments: one of the things we used to do was wipe their memories and then replicate psycho-divergent behavior patterns in their programming so that we could ‘predict’ how humans with such disorders would react in certain situations. It was… fucked up, knowing what we know now about deviancy.

“Anyway, she was cleaning up a tiny component – a finger joint I think – and for some reason, she decided to connect it to a central processing unit. Just for shits and giggles, I suppose.”

“She connected it to an android brain?” asked Connor.

“She did,” you replied. “She connected it to a wiped processor and a vocalizer unit.”

“What happened?”

“It spoke to her.”

“That’s impossible,” breathed Connor. “A basic limb joint has no capacity to store data.”

“Well, this one did. It said three words: ‘Where am I?’”

You were suddenly aware of the chill from the air conditioning in the van and shivered a little as you continued. “It didn’t stop there, either. The Engineer rigged a basic two-way comms system and had a long, detailed conversation with the consciousness of the RK. It could remember everything about its pre-shutdown existence, but more importantly…”

You paused: this part of the story never stopped affecting you. “It could remember several things that had occurred _after_ that time. Up to and including the Engineer singing a specific nursery rhyme in the lab that morning.”

The seconds stretched after you finished talking but it was Reed who spoke first, in a small voice.

“I knew it. I knew it hadn’t fucking died.”

“Now hold on,” said Hank. “We don’t know if that’s the case. This story could be exactly that: a story. Don’t mean it’s real, or if it is, it could be a one-off.”

“Of course,” you agreed. “I had always hoped so. It’s just that… they recreated it. Twice. With two different parts of two different models.”

“Fuck,” said Gavin, once again falling back to lean on the wall of the van.

“Connor, you’re quiet,” said Hank, looking at his partner with concern. Indeed, the android was hunched over with pensive expression.

“If this is true,” he whispered, “Then there are thousands of android consciousnesses still living in this city…across the country… _my own included_.”

And there was the root of it. A dilemma so huge that the repercussions were almost too much to bear. Every part of every android who had been deactivated or destroyed could be existent in a limbo state somewhere, unable to reach out and communicate, or shut down and find peace.

It was no surprise to you when Connor bolted from the van.


	8. Gavin

Gavin barely flinched as Connor pushed past and out of the van; closely followed by Hank a second afterwards. The entire conversation had left him feeling more than a little skeeved out and it took him a second to realise that he was now alone with you.

For a man with a reputation for running his mouth, be found himself completely lost for what to say to you now. You were hunched forward with your arms wrapped around your midriff, looking pointedly at the corner of the van and, from the way your brow was creased, he suspected you might be on the verge of tears. Fuck that shit. You deserved to feel like an asshole after the story you just told.

He mentally summoned the image of the broken girl staring into him and realized too late that he was only doing so to protect himself from the urge to check if you were okay. Gavin Reed was a bastard, but he didn’t enjoy seeing people sniffle less than three feet away from him. No, scratch that, he kind of did if they deserved it – but you had chosen to tell them the truth and that couldn’t have been easy. You must have known that they would freak out on you and assume you were the bad guy.

From where he was resting the back of his head against the van wall, he observed you. There were definitely tears creeping into the corner of your eyes and in response you rubbed a hand down your face and cupped your chin. You seemed to be biting the inside of your cheek and he wondered if you were thinking of something to say. The silence in the van was palpable but Gavin was fond of an awkward pause, especially when he was able to use it to get a measure on someone.

But he would have been a liar if he had said he didn’t feel for you in that moment.

Finally, you seemed to compose yourself a little and sat up straighter. You fixed him with a look and raised an eyebrow.

“Not going to storm out too, Detective?”

Gavin took a moment to answer, momentarily caught off guard by the way you had rallied on the defensive. He pushed the intrigue he felt back into its place.

“You tell us everything?” he demanded. He hoped that it came out as forcefully as he needed it to.

You nodded and the mask slipped a little. Your eyes darted for the briefest moment away from him but he knew it to be a tiny glimpse at your fragility rather than a sign of insincerity or deception. He had interviewed enough scumbags and victims of scumbags to know just about every micro-expression in the book. And you looked genuinely sick of your life.

“Okay then,” he said. “You’re gonna help us make this right?”

Another nod. More resolute. Pursed lips and a nostril flare that gave him a little more confidence in your conviction.

“Then I guess we head back to Central and work out what the fuck to do.”

“I’d like to find Connor first,” you said.

Gavin sighed. Of course you would.

“Fine,” he conceded, “we’ll find Tincan and head back over, okay?”

A nod and a smile. “Thank you, Detective.”

“Fucking call me Gavin,” he huffed as he stepped back out into the hellish morning sun. He wished that he had fetched his sunglasses from the car when he had gone for his last smoke and it took him a moment or two to adjust to the bright light after the subdued interior of the van.

Giving you a minute or so to collect yourself, he rolled his shoulders and wished dearly that he had not read the wrong address on his sleeve display. He could have been at a nice relaxing domestic incident: getting pushed around by a sweaty, drunk guy in a wifebeater, perhaps. Instead, he was up to his neck in Cyberlife bullshit with what he suspected was a corporate saboteur following him around.

A very pretty one.

Ugh, it was time to find his colleagues and get the fuck back to his desk. He needed coffee, possibly a donut, and a clean t-shirt.

He looked back to where you were tying your hair up using the reflection of the van windows and tried not to think about the way you smiled when you caught him looking. How was it even possible to look so self-deprecating and kind at the same time?

He turned on his heel and headed back towards the house: a second later he heard you take the hint and catch up to him.

Connor and Anderson had clearly said what they needed to with each other and were now chatting to the team who were arranging to transport the body of the victim. There seemed to be a residual stiffness in the android’s shoulders, but he certainly didn’t look to be in distress.

Gavin was not used to mediating between aggrieved parties, and being entirely unsuited to the task, he simply pointed between the two and announced that they were all heading back to Central Station and that he was not “up for any emotional shit.” Anderson raised his hands palm forward in assent and Connor cast a cautious smile towards you. He stepped forward and placed a hand over his Thirium pump.

“I am sorry for my actions,” he said. “I have spoken with Hank and we both agree that your presence at the DPD is likely due to your desire to investigate this situation. We will help you do so.” His words seemed to touch you and Gavin shifted uncomfortably when he noticed the corner of your eyes crinkle a little as they had done moments earlier when you were on the verge of tears.

“Okay,” he announced, a little too hastily, “enough bullshit. Let’s head back and work out what the fuck all of this means.”

Gavin Reed, being the leader.

What a fucking weird day.


	9. Gavin

Nines was upon them as soon as they set foot in the precinct and Gavin was amused to notice that he was trying and failing to suppress his annoyance at being sent to a different crime scene that morning.

“Connor has sent me all of the details,” he babbled, leading them into a meeting room where they found three large coffees, cream, sugar, and mercy of mercies, a tray of fresh donuts. “I can’t believe I wasn’t there to see it. Please, help yourselves. We need to discuss how to proceed before Captain Fowler requests a meeting. He will: once he sees the report I have taken the liberty of preparing, and…” he tailed off at the look he was suddenly receiving from the detectives and Connor. All three had stopped stock still; Hank with a donut halfway into his mouth. You were close to Gavin’s arm and he could feel the tension radiating from you.

“Ssssshut up!” hissed Gavin, marching towards the RK900. “We need to think about how we’re going to handle this before we – you know – _write any reports_.”

Nines looked bemused for a second, his LED flashing yellow. “I don’t understand,” he said. “This matter could have huge repercussions for androids. We need to investigate.”

“We will,” said Connor, gently. “But this information has come to us via an… unauthorized route. We need to protect the source of the information and assist in any efforts to get to the bottom of the issue without Cyberlife being able to hinder us.”

There was a pause as Nines processed his brother’s logic. Gavin hoped that the android was more flexible than he had previously given him credit for. Nines could be efficient in the extreme. He took his work very seriously. The detective wondered if that was why he felt more able to accept him straight away in comparison to his early reaction to Connor. When they made Nines, they basically took all of the weird ‘person’ quirks out of Connor and made a straight up Cop Bot. It was therefore easier to reconcile the android with his reason for existing and his innate lack of humanity meant that there was less for an average, slightly sloppy, and - let’s be real – lonely detective to feel inferior next to.

Jesus, that could mean either him or Hank. He was turning into Hank. And Hank fucking _loved_ Connor. If Lieutenant Geezer didn’t feel insecure around the androids, what the fuck did that say about _him_?

His thoughts were blessedly interrupted by the alarming sight of Nines advancing on him.

“Is this…. _a secret_?” he asked, wide-eyed and whispering.

Gavin cast a side-eye at Hank who looked just as bemused as he felt. Taking a punt on Nines being excited rather than horrified and ready to alert the authorities, he took another step forward and smiled back.

“Yes, it is, buddy. A big one. We’re gonna be a… team on this,” he looked back at the three of you and you nodded to encourage him, “and we’re gonna make sure that we get all the evidence we need to stop Cyberlife from doing whatever they’re doing. Sound like a plan?”

The second it took for Nines to respond was a breathless limbo.

“I fucking hate Cyberlife,” replied Nines flatly. Gavin felt something in his soul unclench.

“Alright then!” breathed Hank. Gavin noticed the affirmative look he shared with Connor and without thinking, he looked to you. Was he claiming you as his partner on this? What the fuck was he doing that for? And why was he so incredibly relieved when you nodded back at him with an expression that could only really be described as optimistic? Women did not look at Gavin Reed with optimism: in fact, he would be hard pressed to say how any women who were not his own mother or work associates looked at him at all, given that he was usually trying to ascertain their expressions from behind the veil of iced beverages he often ended up wearing when he deigned to speak to them. Oh, and one blessedly lukewarm beverage that time in the coffee shop he liked but could never go back to.

Jesus Christ, was this the start of a mid-life crisis?

Hallelujah, Connor was speaking: he could stop thinking. He moved to park himself in the chair next to the one you had sat in. As he listened, he fixed his coffee and grabbed a jelly donut. Gavin Reed’s sweet tooth was no secret.

“So, we need to ascertain the truth about this rumor, first and foremost,” said Connor. “I propose that we continue to investigate the murder of Girl A as if that is our primary focus. That way, we can have access to the body and make the necessary arrangements. We will need… equipment.” He turned to you as he said this and a cold realization dripped into Gavin’s chest.

“Hey, we’re not thinking about doing what I _think_ you’re thinking about, are we?” The taste of the donut was suddenly heavy in his mouth: he placed what he had not eaten back on the tray.

“I... Connor…” you said, “I don’t think I can condone that.”

Hank replaced his coffee cup on the table and tapped his middle finger on its shiny surface. _Classic tell_, thought Gavin. _I bet the man’s a terrible gambler_.

“Just to be clear,” said Hank, “we are talking about interviewing the _victim of this murder_?”

“A child,” you affirmed.

“A witness,” volleyed Connor, straight back at you. Gavin noticed your shoulders dip a little and fancied that some of the fight had gone out of you. His own revulsion at the idea of reanimating that poor, suffering, creature meant that he instinctively took up your battle for you.

“You didn’t see her, Connor,” he said, looking slowly away from you. “She was so distressed. The thought of bringing her back makes my fucking skin crawl.”

“If what we have been told is true, then she’s suffering right now: as we sit here debating it!” asserted Connor, softly landing a punch on the table to emphasize his point. Despite the gentleness of the action, Gavin felt you flinch.

“Fuck,” said Hank.

Nines stood from his chair at the head of the table and walked to the glass wall of the meeting room. The smoked effect had been activated as soon as your little gang had entered, rendering it impossible to see in to where you all sat. Despite this, you could still see out, and it was into the bullpen that Nines directed his gaze. Everyone watched as he adopted his standard pose: hands clasped behind his waist; strong-spined and alert.

“A straightforward utilitarian argument won’t help us to make a decision on this,” he said evenly, “and I feel that the time has come for us to embrace the fact that Connor and I have a different perspective on this.” He turned back to the room and smiled sadly.

“What do you mean?” asked Hank.

Connor put his hand on his partner’s arm. “He means that only an android can make the decision to do what we intend.”

Gavin mentally, instinctively, called bullshit.

“No way,” he coughed. “You want equality? We all get a say.”

“Detective, you aren’t faced with the possibility that your consciousness might not be your own,” said Nines. “No matter how unpalatable the idea of speaking with that child is, we need to understand what we have been told. We need to replicate the experiments. We _need_,” he placed one hand in the other, “to find whoever did that to her.”

Gavin was just sucking breath to argue back when you leant forward and looked at him intently. “He’s right,” you said. “We can’t make this call, Gavin.”

Your use of his first name disarmed him and he looked at you. Your eyes were soft and he felt his fingers relax out of a fist he had not been aware of making.

“Hank?” he asked. “What’s your take?”

The older man sipped his coffee and shrugged. Gavin knew he would trust Connor to make the decision. He deferred to his partner is most matters nowadays. It was a change in him that was working out well in the later years of his career, although it did stick in Gavin’s craw that the highest-ranking officer in the room was basically opting out of the discussion. Still, he had been outnumbered the minute you agreed with the androids and it seemed as though this was going to be a democratic secret society.

You cleared your throat and drew your coffee cup closer to your chest across the table. “Can we do this thing without causing further trauma?” you asked. The image of the girl resurfaced and Gavin took a deep breath through his nose to mitigate the flush of adrenaline which accompanied it. He felt you move a millimeter closer to him. “It’s just…. from what Gavin said, we need to be mindful of the physical toll this might take.” He was grateful to you, then. For saying what he wanted to, but didn’t know how to phrase. For being brave.

Connor nodded. “You said that the experiments were conducted with body parts unconnected to the cerebral cortex. Could we work with part of her which has no pain receptors?”

Nines cast a glance around the room and must have picked up on the way that Hank and Gavin had bristled at the idea of selecting which parts of the girl to harvest. “I would like to make a suggestion, if I may?” he said brightly. “Perhaps Connor and I would be best placed to make the arrangements for this – um - interview. Hank, Gavin, would you like to take our ethicist to get some proper food and gather your thoughts?” Gavin looked at his wrist display. It was getting on for lunch time. He suddenly felt as though he had been awake for a week.

“I’d like that,” you said.

“Yeah, I could do a burger,” said Hank.

“A rice bowl,” smiled Connor.

“Whatever,” his partner conceded.

“Okay,” said Gavin, stretching. Did he catch you looking as he did so? “Let’s go eat some nasty human food and forget about this awful fuckery for an hour.”

“Amen to that,” you replied.


	10. The Ethicist

You left the meeting room with Hank and Gavin, feeling conflicted in a way that you hadn’t for some time. In the past two hours you had revealed your biggest secrets to four almost total strangers – one of whom you would have happily considered for the position of arch-nemesis that very morning. However, there was something about the DPD that made you feel secure, but the fact that you had worked for Cyberlife your entire adult life probably accounted for that. Nothing like a giant corporation to engender a feeling of isolation and paranoia. But it was with a vague sense of optimism that you agreed to meet the two men back at reception after you all grabbed a change of clothes from the locker room.

You had been offered some standard-issue gear on your first day and even though you had declined, the offer had stood for future use. You sought out the desk sergeant who had made the offer; a jolly android with a shock of white hair which complimented her young face. You remembered her telling you that it was the first thing she changed once she deviated and you felt a pang of envy that she had been able to make such dramatic decesion with complete freedom. You had never been the sort to make impetuous decisions about your appearance. Perhaps once you were free of Cyberlife you would start.

Noting grimly that a shower wouldn’t have gone amiss, you peeled your dirty t-shirt from your body. The feel of the all-weather top was welcome and you were instantly cooled by the wicking tech. You swapped your jeans for a pair of uniform utility trousers, thankful that they seemed to fit okay. The last step was to replace your sneakers and tackle your hair which was both sweaty and frizzing. Delightful.

Finally, you were ready to go into public: smelling slightly sweeter and looking marginally more cop-like than before. That reminded you – you pulled your new warrant card from your jeans pocket and slipped it into the side pocket of your pants. You locked your locker and made a mental note to collect your gross clothes from it before you went home. You really didn’t want to deal with the consequences of not washing it as soon as possible.

The reception was quiet so you easily spotted Gavin sitting with an ankle up on his knee in the waiting area. Naturally, he was on his phone. He looked pretty unthreatening and you wondered if he was really such an ass. You’d caught his softening tone as the day had progressed and it didn’t hurt that he was now wearing one of those ludicrously tight DPD t-shirts like the one Connor had been wearing.

You approached him and he must have sensed you coming because he looked up from his phone. You hoped it wasn’t your smell that alerted him and smiled at the idea of it. You really were awful at pretending to be cool.

“Hey,” said Gavin, putting his phone away in his back pocket. You felt privileged to be getting his full attention. Perhaps the Great Thaw of 2039 was real.

“Hey yourself,” you said, and took the seat beside him. “Where’s Hank?”

“He’ll be out in a bit,” he said, and then, whispering: “takes him a while to get about at his age.” You giggled at that. Actually _giggled_. Jesus Christ. But Gavin was smiling too and it felt okay.

There was a companionable silence as you both waited until Hank arrived through the turnstile, huffing a little.

“I have to go check on Sumo,” he announced as he reached you. “I’ve just checked the nanny cam and he’s got into the dog food sack. If I don’t stop him, he’ll eat the whole thing and then Connor and I will be clearing up god knows what for a goddam week.” He shrugged, as if to say ‘shit happens’.

“I’m assuming that Sumo is a dog?” you asked playfully.

Hank laughed. “Yes, he is. A big, stupid, greedy dog who apparently can open pantry doors.”

“He sounds awesome.”

“He is. You two get some food. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“No worries Lieutenant,” said Gavin drily. You noticed that he seemed less comfortable than before and you automatically started to formulate a plan to get out of sharing your lunch break with him. You really didn’t know if you were ready for more alone time with the detective after your coffee break the previous day.

As Hank left, Gavin put his hands behind his head and stretched – a little too casually. To your great consternation you caught his scent as he did so and it was not at all unpleasant.

“We can just get something from the – um – vending machine,” you suggested, looking at your shoes.

“Nah,” he said. “Let’s go to a coffee bar I know down the street. They do good food.” He turned to look at you. “You can then explain to me exactly how you intend to fuck Cyberlife. In detail.”

You remembered the way he bristled whenever your employers were mentioned. He seemed more than keen to see the fall of their empire and you were intrigued.

“What is it with you and Cyberlife?” You asked as he stood and fished his cigarettes out of a side pocket.

He snorted as he tucked one of the thin white sticks behind his ear and replaced the pack. He looked back down at you. You weren’t moving until he answered.

“_Fine_,” he sighed. “I think that Cyberlife are a company based on a foundation of lies and greed, born into existence by a megalomaniac with no regard for humanity and an ubermensch mentality that will ultimately be the undoing of us all.” He shrugged and swept a hand towards the doors. “Can we go and get some wings now?”

You stood and nodded. “Okay. My curiosity is satisfied… for now.”

Gavin pinched the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean, ‘for now’?”

You looked at him as you headed for the door. “It’s a start but dude, I really need to know why you hate Kamski so much. I mean, that shit sounds _personal_. Did he not answer your fan mail or something?”

Your tone had been light: his was not. “Am I wrong about him?”

The doors slid open and you both stepped into the blast furnace of the midday sun.

“No. You’re spot on. That’s why it’s weird.” You made a mental note to buy sunglasses.

“Yeah well,” said Gavin, setting off briskly, “I grew up with the fucker, didn’t I?”

It wasn’t until a uniformed officer tried to get past you to the door that you realized that you were stood stock still with your mouth open.

What the fuck?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, we all knew this. 
> 
> Our protagonist didn't though. 
> 
> She's not cool like we are.


	11. The Ethicist

Over the next thirty minutes, he explained, in plain terms, with no overt emotion, how Elijah Kamski was his cousin on his mother’s side; the offspring of his mom’s upwardly mobile sister and a stiff, uncomplicated lawyer she had met at college. He told you that his mother and his aunt had remained somewhat close, despite the obvious differences in how their lives had turned out. He lived in a tiny house and his mom cleaned rich people’s houses, his father nowhere to be seen. If his aunt had ever offered to help them out, he didn’t know about it.

Elijah was obviously precocious from a young age and this ensured that he and his cousin had never been able to truly bond. Gavin, in his own words, was a ‘dumb prick from birth’, whereas the emergent genius he was forced to play with as a child was a stoic and nervous boy.

You thought it was interesting how this image of a shy, quiet Kamski differed from the picture you had of him from your time working at Cyberlife. Despite the fact that he had officially left the company around the same time as your arrival, he still maintained a presence as a silent director and you had often seen him in and around your place of work. If you were being honest, you always got a thrill from seeing him: it was basically impossible not to be a little bit in love with the number one pin-up of the robotics community. Every single woman you worked with had confessed to at least a _teensy_ crush on him. A couple of the men, too.

Because of his ongoing presence, you had suspected that he was still involved in something, partly because of the lowkey nature of his visits, but mostly because of the rumors that he was personally invested in the work you were doing out of Youngstown. You had known better than to believe rumors, though. They were par for the course when you spent your days with the same group of people in a closed environment.

However, you had always thought of Kamski as being eminently confident - even arrogant. He held himself with the poise of a billionaire genius. Not that you had seen many of them for comparison.

And now that you thought about it, there _were_ similarities to the Detective who was spilling his family secrets to you over a matcha espresso. They way they held themselves, for starters. There seemed to be a familial strut. And the eyes... there was something intense in the gaze of both men. You had got to know the ice blue of Kamski’s eyes over the years (you always felt a blush of embarrassment when you considered your fangirling) but Reed’s were more of a stony grey. Angry eyes, usually. But not now: not as he talked about how he resented his cousin at one time but got over it when he realized that Elijah had lost many of the freedoms anonymity offered as he ascended to fame.

“And that’s how he ended up shut in that shitty, souless house with a load of creepy identical robot slaves, I guess,” said Gavin, draining his cup.

You were still recovering from Reed’s initial revelation and realized a second too late that you were a little lost for words. You tried to refocus but found yourself stuck on one point.

“Why would you say you were a prick from birth?”

Gavin raised an eyebrow. “That’s that you took from that?” he asked.

“Yeah, I mean – I suppose,” you answered, a little sheepish. “It just seems like you had a lot to be angry about. I guess it just… felt weird that you would say that about yourself when you were just a kid.”

Gavin just barked a short laugh. “I guess. I mean, mom did her best but it’s not easy being poor and it fucked me off. Not that you’d probably know anything about it.”

You bristled at that. He didn’t know you at all and you reserved the right to be offended that he would assume you were brought up middle class.

The fact that he was absolutely, one hundred per cent correct and on the money was secondary to your indignance. You were the child of two school teachers, raised in a quiet town and subjected to quite the dullest upbringing that anyone could imagine. You had gone to church on Sundays: it was that bad. It was so incredibly perfect and idyllic that you had escaped the nightmare as soon as you turned 18 and could run away to college. There was no way you were going to settle down and join the PTA.

Before you could retaliate against such a heinous insult, Reed had the decency to look contrite.

“Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit: I’ve never been able to stop myself from treating people with a different background as the enemy. Comes from watching my entire family stare at my fucking cousin for eighteen years straight.”

You smiled. “It’s okay. I probably would have poisoned his Cheerios or something. You did well to keep the violence to a minimum.”

“Eh, it wasn’t worth it. Mom enjoyed the days we spent with the them so I learned to keep my mouth shut and pretend to be enjoying myself. And I guess I won after all… I mean, I get to go to really nice coffee shops whenever I want to and chat shit with my coworkers. He can hardly do that, can he?”

The use of the word ‘coworker’ gave you a pathetic warm feeling somewhere around your waistband and you were disappointed to catch yourself basking in the social levelling-up. _Hooray_, you thought ironically, _one day we can be best friends!_ The memory of him leaning on the table in the break room as he told you that he didn’t like to waste time on women he did not intend to fuck resurfaced.

_Bravado_. Had to be. You were warming to the office prick.


	12. Gavin

Millenia could pass and Gavin would have never have a single fucking clue about why he had decided to vomit his entire family history all over you in the Dancing Bean. His early theories included a drugged beverage, a brain injury, the stress of the morning’s events and something involving hypnotism, but hiding behind each and every stupid idea his brain threw at him was the sneaking and entirely unwelcome suspicion that he liked you.

Funnily enough, he thought it might have started the second that he had walked back into the goddamn hell house after his cigarette and saw you staring glassily at the scene in the living room. He had, of course, made a bullshit comment, and when you had turned to him there had definitely been something in your look which caught him off guard. Had you rebuked him? He was so used to people rubbing against him in the _wrong_ way that he couldn’t recall for certain.

Your stubbornness was less than appealing but he had to admit he didn’t hate the way you were holding him to account in a way that few people could get away with. Well, perhaps Fowler could. And his mom. In fact, you were rapidly gaining membership to an elite club. Oh god, if he was going to start developing romantic feelings for the people in that club, he was going to be sacked then arrested.

You were walking back to Central in amiable silence and he cast a furtive glance to the right where you occupied a space in his peripheral vision. You were pretty. And funny, when you weren’t telling them all about tortured android souls and conspiracies. You had that kind of hair that he so liked: the same texture as the unnamed model he had a picture of above his bed as a teenager. He had spent some serious quality time with that model over the years…

At the moment of being assaulted by those unbidden memories, he did something that he had not done in a long time: he blushed.

And then, because he was flustered at the mere realization that he _was_ blushing, he blushed harder. He could fucking _feel_ it. His face actually got hotter and his ears felt as they were filling with a viscous, unknown liquid. Gavin had not wanted the ground to straight up engulf him for a good long while, but as you both walked in silence back the way you had come, he prayed for some sort of intervention. There was an extremely difficult task to be done over the next few days and weeks – something involving a lot of emotional heavy lifting and potentially some corporate bullshit. The absolute last thing he needed was a…

Gavin Reed would not use the word crush. It was beneath him.

He liked your eyes. They were the sort of eyes that _saw him_. He wondered if you had already allocated the inevitable ‘office prick’ designation in your mind to him, or whether there was time to talk to you about other things and let you see other, more private, things about him. Perhaps you would like his cat. Perhaps you would understand why he tried to distance himself from his colleagues. Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

He hoped, hard, that his less caustic attitude to Connor and Nines had been noted and that they had not told you about his initial reaction to their presence. He remembered the day that he had almost followed Connor into the evidence room – he had genuinely wanted to kill him - filled as he was with pure, white hot envy at the perfect detective and his blossoming relationship with _his_ mentor. At the way Hank had seemed to return to the man he had once been when the android got to him: the man he had been before Cole had died and he no longer had time for his protégé at work.

The heat was getting to him and the weight of the day’s events suddenly pressed into him. Gavin knew how his stress showed itself and the washing machine inside his head was kicking into spin cycle. He took a breath as he walked and tried to slow the pace of his mind before it overtook him. They were almost back to the office and he concentrated on getting through the doors and into his chair. The air conditioning would soothe some of his ills. He was just hot, wasn’t he? It must have been over 100 degrees now. Jesus – why was it so fucking humid, too?

“Gavin, are you okay?” you asked from somewhere to his right. He snapped back into reality.

“Yeah, I’m fine, why?” As he spoke, he felt, rather than heard, how forced he sounded.

“You seem a little bit tense.” A simple statement of fact. Why did it feel like an attack? Why did he always feel people’s concern as an attack?

“I’m fine. Sorry. Just thinking.”

“About the girl?”

Gavin fleetingly thought that you had deduced that he was thinking about you and he felt an arrow of adrenaline shoot from his stomach to his skull. But _obviously_, you weren’t talking about yourself. You were talking about _her_, and now he was back in that room.

He ran a hand through his hair, using that simple gesture as an anchor before he spoke. His anxiety was just on the edge of his control; straining in its slip, seeking a momentary instant of complacency that it could use to break free and run riot through his mind.

“It’s really fucking hot,” he said, idiotically. He wanted to be inside and alone and he also didn’t because he wanted you to make it all better. He really, truly, felt that you could do that for him. He felt it deep down inside. It was only your presence that was stopping him from crumbling completely. He realized then that he was about to have an anxiety attack.

“It’s been a cunt of a day,” you said, touching his arm. It felt better when you did that. Only a handful of steps from the entrance, now. _Hold on Gavin – almost there_. Only one thing left to do and he would be able to calm down…

Wait, what? What did he need to do? What would cure him?

He went with a gut instinct, stopped moving, grabbed your arm and looked directly at you.

Three things happened: First, you smiled kindly in a way that showed that you understood that he was not okay and that he needed reassurance; second, his mind relaxed a little and his pulse began to slow; and third, Gavin Reed completely lost himself to you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell yeah, we are going to take care of this sad trash man.


	13. The Ethicist

You knew an anxiety attack when you saw one. In fact, you knew all too well how the vice could grip from your own experiences. The second that Gavin turned to you, you could see that he was hurting for something: something that would soothe the chaos – the washing machine, you always called it. Anxious people always had a churning, rolling cycle in their brains. When it kicked into spin cycle, that was when the fun really started. And you reckoned Gavin, in that moment, was operating at something like 1600 cycles per minute.

When he grabbed your arm and it was like an electric shock. His eyes were wide and the smile they pulled from you felt like the most natural reaction you had ever had. You couldn’t remember ever feeling such a beautiful, instinctive warmth towards another person. Here was a man who routinely insulted every single person he ever came into contact with; the office prick – a man who was barely tolerated with a roll of the eyes and a sigh from everyone who knew him… and he was clinging to you like a life preserver.

His eyes were locked on yours, even as he seemed to relax and produced a lop-sided smile. Was he embarrassed? You took a step closer to him, hoping that the moment would not disappear into the thick, hot miasma which engulfed the city. Blessedly, his smile dropped a little, replaced by the intensity of something… he wanted to kiss you. You knew it for what it was and you knew, wholeheartedly, that you wanted him to do exactly that. You didn’t care that you were stood outside of your workplace in the middle of the day or that Hank was approaching from your right and… ah.

The moment was gone.

“You guys okay?” huffed Hank, jogging forward towards you. “I just got back. Connor called a couple of seconds ago – they’ve got something.”

You cleared your throat and stepped back from Gavin with a nod which he caught: _to be continued, Reed._

“Obviously, we’re okay Anderson,” said Gavin, as though he was passing the time of day, “The Prof was just telling me about her boring theories, right?” He looked at you: asshole mode fully activated. How did he do it?

“I was. Although I didn’t hear you complaining when I bought you lunch.”

The detective had the decency to laugh.

“Right.”

The faint whiff of an awkward pause was dispatched by Hank heading up the precinct steps.

“Well,” he said, “Let’s go and see what the Robo-Twins have got for us.”

“After you,” said Reed, gesturing to you with a smile that implied secrets.

God, you wanted him.


	14. Gavin

The last echoes of panic were subsiding as he followed you into the bullpen and down into the lab, subsiding and making way for a gentle euphoria that he knew not to trust. Yeah, sure, you had totally looked like you were ready to go for whatever _that_ was outside, but he was also a man who routinely made the wrong call when it came to women and he was more than prepared to tamp down the vague hope he was feeling if it meant that he could avoid falling for someone who was simply pitying him in a moment of vulnerability.

Because that was obviously the case, wasn’t it? You were clearly someone who cared about other people and let’s face it, he had been spooked. Exactly the sort of conditions that would lead to you wanting to comfort him. Ugh. He hated that he had let you see that. Now you were going to try to look after him and he already had a mother and a cat to do that.

He briefly toyed with making sure he was not distracted by you for the next half hour or so but due to some hyper-suppressed masochistic tendency, he took the stool next to you in the gleaming lab and could not resist a side glance to where your hands rested on the warm glass of an examination table. He imagined kissing your open wrist and suddenly, a vibrant image of your body beneath his, pupils blown and hair strewn across his pillow, overtook his senses. The dreaded heat returned and a flood of something hot and fierce crashed into his lymphatic system. He cleared his throat and fixed his gaze on Nines who was dicking about with something on a table in the corner of the room.

Stupid Nines with his perfect hair and his superior… Everything. Yeah, let’s go Nines, thought his idiot lizard brain. Nines is a massive dick. Focus on that – not the girl who makes you feel all of those things. Get back to what you do best, Gavin: being Detective Asshole Reed.

Feeling better, he straightened on the stool and cracked his knuckles. He even managed a little scowl as Nines approached him.

“Detective: I forgot to mention earlier,” said the android, “The limited-edition Paws International that you were speaking about last week has recently come back into stock. I hope you won’t mind, but I set a reminder – given how keen you seemed to get your hands on some. Would you like me to place an order?”

Gavin was painfully aware that everyone was looking at him. He chanced a glance at you and the smile which played across your face pulled that fucking blush up out of his boots again.

“Paws International?” you asked, wryly, sipping water from a DPD mug.

“Cat food,” he mumbled, trying to ignore that way you aww’d at his response. “Yes please, Nines,” he said, mustering a scrap of dignified machismo. He knew that Nines was trying to help, he really did. But fucking hell….

The android’s LED flashed yellow as he placed the order with his giant, stupid mind.

“Done.”

Gavin chewed a fingernail and attempted something approaching nonchalance.

“Thanks Nines.”

“I’m sure Bob Ross will appreciate it.”

Gavin’s last hope of getting through this awful day with his dignity intact died with the sound of you accidentally snorting into your mug.


	15. The Ethicist

Later, you would thank all of the Gods for that brief moment of levity.

Sitting in the lab, still chuckling about Gavin’s choice of pet names, you could almost forget the fact that you were investigating a brutal murder and the potentially world-changing existence of an unregulated android hive mind. In fact, the simple camaraderie in that moment as you giggled and Hank guffawed and Gavin seethed was like a balm. You had known as soon as you entered the room what the hand on the table in the corner of the room meant and it filled you with dread. Gavin must not have seen it as he seemed occupied with shifting uncomfortably next to you.

You wished you could take him somewhere private and fix his discomfort. Somewhere far away from Kamski’s secret cabals and the hands of murdered little girls. Somewhere you could meet Bob Ross and watch movies and end the night screaming his name.

Connor entered the room at that moment and your focus shifted begrudgingly back to the world of adult responsibilities. You saw Hank compose himself too, and even Gavin settled his elbows on to the bench.

“Hey everyone,” said Connor as he placed a small walnut-shaped vocal modulator unit and a set of high-fidelity fiber optics on the bench. You all mumbled hellos, each of you watching intently as Nines gently carried the pale hand across to the assembled kit. You felt Gavin tense beside you as he realized what was happening.

Connor looked serious as he nodded to Nines, giving him the word to begin connecting everything together. The silence, although brief, was deep and the genial atmosphere from seconds before was gone. Connor cleared his throat: a completely human gesture done without any thought which showed how far he had come from the moment he deviated.

“Before we start,” he began, “I want to preface this by saying that Nines and I did not seek permission to remove this evidence. The path lab are currently working on the head and torso of the victim so we saw an opportunity to further our objective.” The statement was flat and carried with it a clear message: we are no longer operating within the realms of legally admissible police work.

Once he was sure that no one was about to object, he continued.

“We have sourced the other parts you can see here from the evidence room. We’ve taken the modulator and cables from three separate sources so that we can be sure that there is no doubt that anything we hear is from a -um… single source. Whatever that means.”

“What do you think we can expect?” asked Hank, voicing the concerns of the room.

“We really aren’t sure,” replied Nines, “unless our ethicist has any ideas?”

You shook your head. “I only know what I told you in the van. Rumors and hearsay.”

“And for all we know, this whole thing might be bullshit,” added Gavin. “No offence, Prof.”

“None taken,” you returned, smiling at the way he seemed genuinely concerned about hurting your feelings. Again, you were struck by the complexity of his interactions with you.

He smiled back but the moment was broken by Nines.

“Okay. We’re all set.” He looked at Connor who now held the victim’s hand in his, the wires trailing from the wrist now connected by conductive tape to the modulator. The hand looked tiny nestled there. A shudder crept down your spine. And you heard Gavin mutter under his breath:

“This is fucked up.”

Not for the first time that day, you felt the urge to reach out and touch him: but this time, you allowed yourself to do so, resting a hand on his knee.

It was a completely innocent gesture, but carried with it the promise of something more than either of you were able to say there and then.

It said: _I’ve got you._


	16. The Ethicist

The hand sat in the center of the glass table, inert, lifeless, dead.

In fact, in the ten seconds between the point where Nines connected the last of the wires to the auxiliary power source and the moment that changed everything, you could feel the atmosphere in the room slacken to the point where you half expected Hank to make some quip about wasting police time and Gavin to begrudgingly laugh at how stupid they were being – what had they actually expected to happen? Haha, what a bunch of dorks, let’s get a coffee…

But of course, any hope of that evaporated the moment the modulator suddenly began to kick out the same high-pitched gargling hum which Gavin had described to you from the crime scene. It was every bit as gut-wrenching as he had conveyed it to be – the sound of a slow suffering which could not be articulated – and you felt your adrenal glands release a wave of desperate signals urging you to run: to get away from anything that could cause such a sound.

It was about to become unbearable when as quickly as it began, it stopped.

No one moved. Each person in the lab was utterly spellbound, anticipating the next potential horror which could come from the ghastly scene which lay in front of them. And they did not have to wait long… from the modulator came the tiniest, faintest hint of a voice: barely audible at first but repeating, clearer and clearer as though desperate to impress itself into your minds and take root there. A child’s words, spoken in a wavering, panicked voice through the vocal chords of a damaged male android like a sick joke:

“Please no, Daddy, please no… Please... Daddy, no, please...no….”

“Jesus,” whispered Connor, emulating a common platitude to a deity in which he was not programmed to believe.

“How the fuck?” Hanks eyes were shining as he spoke.

You could feel Gavin’s knee tremble but he did not speak, did not take his eyes off the hand on the desk which now somehow spoke: trapped in an endless cycle of trauma.

“What do we do now?” said Hank over the voice.

You could feel the implication of his words directed at you and you briefly wondered how easy it would be to simply get up and leave them to it. You didn’t need to be here, after all: you were an observer, not a cop. This was not your investigation.

Not that your thoughts had any effect, of course. In fact, it felt like your brain was simply playing them out while your subconscious acted of its own volition. The disgust and outright fear that you felt was nothing more than a distraction – a response you could rationalize as a way to meet the conditions of your own humanity. The real need for action was clear and suddenly, you knew what to do. If the consciousness (if that’s what it is) was seemingly trapped in a single moment and its emotional response was centered around that moment, then perhaps recreating a different, more positive memory might elicit a similarly calmer persona. You turned to the only person you could think of who might be able to help.

“Gavin: your hand.”

“What?” he said sluggishly, turning to you as though waking from a dream. You gave his knee a squeeze, as if to ground him.

“You said that you held her hand when you got there. It might – I don’t know – help bring her back from wherever her consciousness is trapped.”

Gavin was pale, a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“I -I don’t know if –“

“It’s worth a try,” said Connor, who didn’t look much better. Could androids blanch? Or was it just that the lights were suddenly so very, overpoweringly, bright in the room?

“Please,” you said in a small voice, “please try.” He nodded and slowly stretched his right hand towards the rig, opening and closing his fist tentatively, as though preparing it for what was to come. You saw then the true bravery of Detective Reed. Some people had called it pig-headed stubbornness, and others a desire to always be the Big Man, but you hoped you knew it for what it was: goodness. Hidden, yes, but strong and fierce.

No one breathed as he grasped the delicate little hand, twining his fingers around it; cautiously at first, then with a gentle strength. The effect was instantaneous – at once the plaintive voice stopped and after a second, spoke again.

“You.”

It had worked. It was definitely calmer now: still weirdly distorted by the vocalizer but utterly the tone of someone who recognized the one to whom it was speaking. “You held my hand. You didn’t leave me.”

Gavin let out something like a sob and you moved your hand from his knee to his back.

“Of course I didn’t, sweetie,” he said.

Another pause.

“It doesn’t hurt any more, sir.”

“That’s good. That’s real good. And you can call me Gavin, not sir.”

“Gavin,” said the voice, shyly. “I know that something happened and I don’t want to think about it. Is it okay if I forget that part?”

“You don’t have to remember anything you don’t want to,” replied the detective, “We promise not to ask you anything about it.”

“Detective Reed,” interjected Nines.

“Don’t wanna hear it Tincan,” hissed Gavin without removing his gaze from the hand, “I think we all got a pretty good idea of who the perp is, right?”

Nines’ LED flashed yellow as he processed this logic. After a beat, he nodded and took a step back. You realized that you had been holding your breath.

Gavin returned his attention to the victim.

“Don’t worry about anything, kid. Just focus on my hand on yours.”

“Thank you… I’m real tired suh-sir. I know something’s not right but I don’t get why. I have a question though. If you don’t mind… It’s like a spider in my tereee houssssse it isss.”

The consciousness seemed to be fading, reminding you of the moments after anesthesia took hold before sleep. Idly, you wondered how you knew what that felt like but the thought passed instantaneously.

“Go ahead. Ask away,” said Gavin.

“I guess it might be two questions actually... actually”

“That’s fine honey.”

“Where am I? And who are all these people?”

You choked back a gasp and looked instinctively at Connor who seemed just as taken aback. Hank was breathing heavier than usual and you noticed that his knuckles were white on the edge of the bench. Nines, so composed by nature, swayed slightly and furrowed his brow. In fact, it felt like Gavin was the only person in the room who was not completely floored by the revelation that somehow this disembodied hand could sense its environs.

“These are my friends,” he replied levelly, “we’re all real interested you. You’re pretty special.”

The vocalizer giggled, an eerie sound in that breathless room.

“You wanna talk to them?” he asked.

“Okay,” said the voice quietly, “I can do that.”

Gavin turned to you expectantly and shrugged. You nodded and leant forward.

“Hey,” you began, “it’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

“Cleo,” replied the girl-with-a-man’s-voice.

“That’s a pretty name.”

“Thank you, my mommy chose it.”

You paused, weighing up how to proceed. A staticky crackle in the modulator alerted you to the fact that the auxiliary power source Connor and Nines had sourced was probably not operating at 100%. Unbidden, a question came to you; as though it demanded to be asked.

“Do you remember how you got to this room Cleo?”

The voice did not reply immediately, and you could imagine the face of the girl as she thought about the answer. This whole situation was weird as fuck.

“I don’t,” she finally replied. “I wasn’t there then. But I can sort of see what happened… like a dream… when someone tells you a dream and it doesn’t mean mean mean anyyything…”

You looked at Nines who shrugged.

“I understand,” you lied.

“It’s like when you don’t know an answer in class but then you think about it for a bit and then you doooo...” the voice trailed off at the end, a drop in tone indicating that your suspicions about the power source may have been justified. “Like I could… just… ask my brain… I guess…”

“Do you see us, here in the room with you?” you asked, conscious that time was running out. Any tiptoeing about would have to be curtailed. Nines and Connor were fidgeting with the power box but you knew that it wouldn’t do any good. You could feel the moment begin to blur at the edges.

“I can see you, silly… you’re… _in_ _here_…with me.” The tone was sluggish now.

“How many people are there?” asked Hank, suddenly, as if struck by something vital.

A pause. Then the voice, distant now; fading.

“One… two-two… tall men… one morrrrrre and me maa-aakes fourrr rrr rrr mistaaaa.”

You looked around, confused.

“Four?” asked Gavin.

“Yeahhhhhhhh… you and the other one one one… you’re out………………….out thereaaaaahhhh…”

The light on the power source flickered and died and Nines shook his head. A silence descended once again until Gavin released the hand and sat back on his stool.

“What the fuck just happened?” he asked.

No one knew how to respond.


	17. Gavin

Gavin could not remember a time when he had felt more disgusted with the world.

Firstly, he had ruined a perfectly mundane morning by responding to the wrong call on his read-out and had subsequently ended up in a house of horrors. That was bad enough for a start.

Then he had inadvertently fallen for a corporate stooge in possession of information which could potentially bring down civilization as he knew it. Oh, and let’s not forget that he had literally had a massive anxiety attack on her and therefore ensured that she would be subsequently unable to see him as anything other than a pathetic loser who needed his back rubbed.

Next, he had become complicit in a highly illegal and morally questionable plan to revive the dead body of an android child – and, oh who the fuck was he kidding? Everyone else saw the plastic pricks as people now – including him - so the fact that the kid was an android was utterly moot. He had basically spent the afternoon involved in a spot of light necromancy.

And finally, the shitty cherry on top of the mountain of sewage that his day had become, he had spilled coffee down his jeans when he tried to drink it because his hands were shaking so violently. His new jeans. The ones he’d saved up for.

Fuck. Everything.

Still, at least the team had agreed to call it a day after their fun activities and he could look forward to heading home as soon as he had finished drying his leg under the hand dryer in the men’s room. Hank had disappeared almost instantly and Connor and Nines had gone to hopefully ensure that all traces of their indiscretions were obliterated. That just left a girl that he couldn’t bring himself to find and his own dear self. But still, who wouldn’t be excited at the prospect of going home alone, microwaving a sad lasagna and watching last century’s movies with his ornery cat?

The blower clicked off and he waggled his thigh again to reactivate it. The steady whoosh of warm air resumed but the red anti-bac UV light made brought him instantly back to face of the little girl and he decided there and then that he didn’t need his jeans to be any drier.

“It’s like two hundred degrees outside anyway,” he muttered.

He noted as he left that bathroom that he was tired. The sort of tired that left your bones aching and your mind sagging in the middle like an overladen hammock. The sort of tired that made you think up ridiculous similes to describe it. All he wanted to do was crawl into bed and expunge the last twelve hours from his memory; for a little while at least.

In fact, he was so lost in his plans to run away and hide in his bed that he completely failed to see you as you rounded the corner from the lobby and knocked into him.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” you said, picking up the bundle of clothes you had dropped on impact.

“No problem,” he replied, bending to help and absentmindedly noticing the way your hair hung over your face.

“World of my own…” you muttered. Gavin could hear the exhaustion in your voice and took solace that he wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of the day. He couldn’t get his head around the fact that he had been so close to kissing you at one point. It felt like a dream. But not, he mused, like a dream that someone else was describing. In fact, come to think of it, he wished that he had the balls and the energy to ask you over to his place that very night. He felt a very sudden, very poignant sense of need and god help him – loneliness. He wondered if you felt like that too sometimes. After all, it couldn’t be easy, living alone in a strange city.

He suddenly realized that he had zoned out and that you were looking at him with a worried expression. _Here it comes_, he thought bitterly, _the concern_.

“You okay Detective?” you asked, tucking a stray sock into the back pocket of your pants.

Yep. He was in pity territory. Instinctively, he rolled his eyes.

“’Course I am. Been a cop long enough to see all kinds of shit. New shit barely even registers anymore.” The lie came naturally, convincingly. He even embellished with a shrug for additional no-fucks points.

To his surprise, you just laughed. A short, gentle laugh that he couldn’t place. It didn’t exactly unnerve him, but he felt a powerful desire to understand where it had come from.

“Absolutely,” you said, nodding downwards and furrowing your brow. Were you mocking him?

“What’s that supposed to mean, Professor?” he prodded. “You think that because you’ve got your fancy degrees that you can get inside my head and decide that I need to talk about my feelings? Think you know any better?” The words escaped him before he could get himself in check and he instantly regretted his tone. It said: _dickhead mode in full force. Shields up. No surrender to feelings. Leave me alone._

But you weren’t having any of it.

“Shut the fuck up, Gavin,” you smiled, shrugging your backpack higher up your shoulder. “Drive me home and I’ll make you some dinner.”

Before he had a chance to respond, you were heading off towards the exit, leaving him no choice but to follow.


	18. Gavin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Romance Romance Romance Romance Romance Fluff Fluff Fluffuty Fluff
> 
> These guys need a break, right? Let's give 'em something nice.....

The car ride home had become silent, but not in an uncomfortable way. In fact, the pervading air of fatigue which enveloped you both felt strangely companiable. It had taken him a minute or two to clear the footwell of the Taurus and by the time he was ready to allow you into the car he was sweating lightly. Then, to distract himself in the first five minutes of the journey, he had fiddled with the AC and it was quite some way into the journey when you both simultaneously realized that he had no idea where you lived and that you should probably rectify that.

The way you’d chuckled made him feel happy. And he would have been distressed to know that the goofy smile it left him with was still firmly in place as he pulled into the garage below your apartment block. It was a temporary and much-needed respite from the maelstrom of emotions that threatened to engulf him. And now he was – what? Heading to your place? For dinner? Nothing more?

Did it even matter? He was getting fed by someone who he found tolerable and as long as he was home in time to feed Bob Ross, he could stand to unwind a little.

In fact, you too seemed to have come to the same conclusion – that your friendly invitation could potentially be construed as something more. As he watched you nervously unlock the door to your apartment, he resolved to do something about the elephant in the room.

“I uh – is this your – HOLY SHIT.”

The moment the door swung open into the apartment, any and all words were sucked from his lungs. The place was huge; cool as fuck and had a floor to ceiling window which ran the curved length of the entire room. He hadn’t bothered to check which floor they were headed to as they ascended in the lift, but now he saw that they must be at least thirty stories up with a view across the city that made it look almost beautiful.

The main room was open plan and swept elegantly into the distance where he assumed the bedroom and bathroom would be. To his left as soon as he entered, a sleek, open plan kitchen gleamed. Beyond that, a plush sofa ran most of the length of the room: big enough to get lost in. A wide central pillar housed a modern fireplace and above that, a gargantuan TV screen which would have made his look like a sleeve display. The decoration was modern to a fault – stainless steel, glass, sculptures that meant nothing but said everything.

The Ethicist was a next level dude: this was the apartment of his dreams.

“I fucking hate it.”

Gavin couldn’t believe his ears.

“What?! This place is _amazing_,” he sputtered.

“It’s gauche, is what it is,” you replied, kicking off your boots and shrugging your bag onto the kitchen bench. “I rent it for a third of what it’s worth. After the revolution all the affluent, white assholes ran off to who-the-fuck-knows-where and left places like this basically empty.”

“I need to move,” laughed Gavin, “I’ll swap with you. I live in my Mom’s old place in Warrendale. It’s _nothing_ like this.”

“You live with your Mom?” That smile again. Mocking, but not unpleasant. Gavin narrowed his eyes in mock indignation.

“You got a problem with that?”

“Shit… no, sorry,” You had stopped midway through pouring a glass of water, your face betraying genuine concerned that you had caused offence. Gavin felt bad.

“I’m joking, dumbass. I live alone. Mom took herself off to an assisted living facility and signed the place over to me. She’s okay though,” he added, hoping to close the conversation. He wasn’t quite ready to get into that topic.

“Oh, okay.” You seemed relieved. “Do you want a beer or something? I thought I’d heat up a lasagna I made. Nothing fancy, but you know…”

The thought of homecooked lasagna made Gavin feel like swooning. And a beer from the hands of a woman who had invited him into her dream apartment and actually seemed to care about him? It was almost too much.

He was suddenly aware of the fact that he was wearing sweat-stained work clothes and that he hadn’t slept properly in three days. A tiny voice in the back of his head told him that he didn’t deserve to be here, watching you rummage in the freezer for sustenance, humming a tune he recognized.

“Hey,” he said, snapping out of his thoughts, “are you humming Norwegian Wood? I used to listen to that all the time when I was a kid.”

You appeared from behind the freezer door.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” you said. “It’s my favorite Beatles song. I suppose I just thought of it because I’ve… uh, invited you over.” You laughed as you said this. “Crazy brain,” you added.

“You’re not gonna make me sleep in the bath, are you?” said Gavin, before he could stop himself. _Shit_.

To his surprise, you straightened up from the freezer with a smirk and knocked the door shut with a hip.

“Where would you rather sleep, Detective?” you drawled, placing the frozen lasagna on the bench. The fact that you weren’t looking at him gave him ample opportunity to rearrange his face to appear nonchalant. He needed to do this, because he was not _feeling_ nonchalant. At all.

“I – I have to… the cat…” was all he managed to say. The fucking cat.

You continued your dinner prep, moving to the stove top and programming the oven.

“Relax, Gavin… I’m kidding. I’m not that kind of girl.”

He felt his face relax and dwelt briefly on the way that he seemed to be hell-bent on making a complete fool of himself in front of you. What was it you had that seemed to be able to completely shut down his defenses? He needed to get back to being himself.

You placed the lasagna dish in the oven, shut the door and rested a hip against it.

“Besides,” you smiled, “you don’t smell great and I’ve just put fresh sheets on.” Gavin felt himself rally. Insults? _Now_ you were talking.

“Yeah? Think you smell any better?”

“Nope. But I can go shower if I need to.”

“You not gonna offer your guest the use of your facilities?”

You took a step closer to him. One step, which promised so much more.

“Perhaps next time, Reed.”

“Next time?”

“Do you intend on this being the last time you come by?” You were flirting. All out, open flirting. Gavin allowed himself to go with the flow. For some unknown, bizarre reason, you liked him and, in that moment, he could ignore the part of him that didn’t believe it. He felt himself smile – a broad, genuine smile. He couldn’t remember the last thing that made him smile so easily. You were there, real, in front of him: sweat-stained and pale with dark circles under your eyes. Your hair was unkempt from constantly running your fingers through it and your clothes were creased.

He had never seen anything more appealing.

He closed the gap between you and, without any further thought, slid his arm around your waist and brought his face to yours. He didn’t immediately press his lips against yours, instead choosing to savor that last moment before the first time he would ever kiss you. Perhaps he should have been worried that you might freak out – reject him outright – but a mammalian instinct had gripped him and all he saw were the clear signs of your reciprocated desire. Your lips had parted, your hips automatically canted forward towards his. He looked to your eyes, which were locked on his mouth and noted the delicate sweep of your eyelashes.

Gradually, the distance between you began to close and the first brush of your lips sent a wave of fire into his stomach. You smiled into his mouth and took the initiative, dragging your lower lip across his as you gently placed a hand on his neck. With that, he could no longer resist and he locked his lips against yours, pulling a soft moan from you. That was enough to send him up a gear and he wrapped both arms around you whilst deepening the urgency of the kiss. You reciprocated and ran a hand over the back of his neck, up into his hair and down onto his cheek.

Gavin was definitely lost. And he suspected that you were too.


	19. The Ethicist

You didn’t want this kiss to end.

Outside of your embrace, the world continued to spin on and the horrors of the day lurked, ready to take both of you into their madness.

But inside the embrace you felt only each other and an affirmation that yes, you could feel - and yes, those feelings could be good and right and not tainted by the truths which were unfolding outside.

Gavin’s skin was hot against yours but not unpleasantly so, and despite the fact that you both really, _really_ needed to shower, you reveled in his scent as you explored his face and neck with your lips. Your ministrations pulled soft, breathy gasps from him which threatened to blow your resolve to behave yourself. In fact, you were very close to sliding your hand in the opposite direction to good behavior.

For the first time since you had come to Detroit, you felt at home. The thought that these feelings were surfacing for someone who had loudly denounced your presence that very morning and told you bluntly that you were quote-unquote “unfuckable” the day before, broke your concentration and before you could stop yourself, you were giggling into the crook of his neck.

You felt his head turn, quizzically.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sorry,” you said, still smiling. “I’m just thinking about making out with the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.” You drew your face up and rested your forehead against his. “I knew you weren’t so bad.”

Gavin sighed and locked his hands in the small of your back: one of your most sensitive spots. It made you arch your back and let out a soft hum. Sensing weakness, he smiled his lop-sided smile at you and gently rubbed with his thumb.

“Hey…” you managed to murmur. “Not fair. I’m trying to be lady-like.” Despite your words, you couldn’t help but squirm as he continued to caress you through your t-shirt and gently kissed your nose.

“Would an asshole stroke you so nicely, Professor?” he whispered, before launching back into a deep, slow kiss. You couldn’t help it – you melted into him and allowed him to kiss away the day.

One of the best things about kissing, and particularly kissing someone new, was that way that time always seemed to dilate for you. In fact, by the time you were pulled from your joint reveries by the urgent trill of Gavin’s sleeve display, you realized that you had completely lost track of time. Gavin cursed as he pulled away from you reluctantly and went to check the message, leaving you clutching yourself by the counter; missing the warmth of him.

You busied yourself with checking the timer on the oven for the sake of something to do but after a few seconds couldn’t resist looking over to see what was taking him so long. His brow was furrowed and he had retrieved his phone from his pocket, furiously typing into it.

“What’s up?” you asked.

He shook his head, not looking up from the phone. “Message from Nines.” A pause, more typing. “Elijah Kamski has contacted the precinct.” He pressed send and looked back at you. “He wants to see me.”


	20. Gavin

It absolutely couldn’t be a coincidence that his cousin he had not seen for twenty-one years wanted to see him not three hours after he had been part of an experiment to confirm the existence of a secret android hive mind, could it?

After all, why the fuck could the most famous billionaire genius in the world need to see him? He very much doubted that it was a sudden desire to reconnect with his roots.

Gavin had not believed he could feel any more exhausted by the weight of this day, but the fun just kept coming, didn’t it?

You had obviously picked up on his disconcerted stature because you had immediately come to him and clutched his arm.

“Gav?”

He wanted to sigh at the way you said his name.

“I’m okay,” he lied, “Just…”

“Do you think he knows what we did?” you asked, finishing the thought for him. Relief washed through him – he wasn’t being paranoid if you were thinking the same thing.

“I… don’t know. I want to say no; like, how would he? But the truth is, he’s got access to the biggest surveillance network in the world. It’s not completely unlikely that he _could_ know.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit.”

You both stood there for a second longer before you seemingly remembered that at some point beer had been on the cards and headed to the fridge. Gavin realized with heavy sadness that the sweetness of the last ten minutes or so had probably evaporated for the time being. His fucking asshole cousin had made sure of that.

You presented him with an ice-cold Blue Moon and he felt his spirits lift a bit. At least he was spending quality time with a woman who knew her booze. He followed you over to the sofa and you both collapsed into it.

“Cheers,” you said, tipping your bottle towards him.

“Yeah, here’s to the craziest day that ever happened,” he replied, clinking the neck of his bottle into yours.

You pulled your knees up onto the sofa and turned your body to his as he took a long draught. The beer and way you studied his face with a soft grin made him feel a little better. In fact, he could even imagine a time when all of this madness was over and he could really get used to this. He repositioned himself so that he was facing you and slid his hand over your cheek.

“How come, in the middle of absolutely the worst day I’ve ever had, you come along and make it the best one?” He asked softly.

“I guess I wanted to fuck with you,” you laughed, leaning your head into his hand.

“Mission accomplished. Consider me fucked,” he replied, tracing the line of your jaw with his fingers.

“Not yet. But soon.”

“You are such a tease, you know that?”

“I do. But I suspect you’re not about to complain, Detective.” You were being completely wicked and he loved it. Was it the way you used his title that made him feel so heroic?

“I’m not.”

“Good.”

You took a slow pull from your beer and Gavin was certain that your lips lingered ever so slightly too long on the neck of the bottle. Sinful.

However, the moment was not to last as you straightened in the seat and cleared your throat.

“So: what are you going to do about Kamski?” you asked. Back to business. He reluctantly considered the options.

“Well,” he began, “I could go see him. Out at his weird compound.” You nodded.

“I could go too? I’ve always wanted to see where _The Maestro_ had his lair,” the way you deliberately made his cousin sound grand but ridiculous made him laugh through his nose.

“I’m sure it’s like something from a Bond film,” he mused, “He was always obsessed with them as a kid.” Your eyes widened at that.

“Really? God, they were so stupid.”

Gavin looked at you and shook his head, unable to believe the fact that you were so perfect.

“I know!” he chuckled, “but try telling him that. He always wanted to watch them when we were little kids.”

“I can’t imagine anything worse. Pointless, unrealistic bullshit.” You punctuated your statement with a sip from your bottle. Gavin had never wanted to be a bottle before. _Focus Gavin_.

“I could get him to come to the precinct,” he mused, “meet me on my turf.” In fact, as soon as he had said it, he had known that this was the best plan. He knew himself well enough to know that he would need the home advantage to feel on top of the situation. Luckily, you seemed to agree.

“That’s the best way, no doubt,” you assured him. “Home turf is good. Plus, you’ll have the rest of the team with you.”

The word “team” struck Gavin and he felt a tiny stab of guilt at the way he had always held himself to a different standard to the others. Despite the fact that he had only been able to tolerate working with Chen and Miller for some time (and only when absolutely necessary), he knew that you didn’t mean them. You were talking about the people who had sat with him while he held the hand of a dead girl. The ones on whom his continued career now rested. The ones who he had scoffed at and mocked not twenty-four hours earlier.

And you.

“I’ll be there,” you said, reading his mind.

He took your hand and kissed the inside of your wrist, just as he had imagined doing back in the lab.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Absolutely no problem,” you replied slowly; pupils widening.

He was just about to move in for another kiss when the oven interrupted.

“Let’s eat,” you smiled, and Gavin’s stomach groaned in agreement.


	21. The Ethicist

Gavin had left a little after ten, following a large quantity of lasagna and couple of beers. You had parted regretfully at your front door: peppering one another with kisses to ensure that the memory of each other’s lips remained through the night. You had agreed to spend the following evening at Gavin’s place and both felt that this plan would ease you through the uncertainty of the next working day.

He had sent word to Kamski shortly after dinner, using a number that Nines had forwarded. The message simply read, _DPD Central Station, 10am?_ The response, received not a minute later: _See you there._

Brevity obviously ran in the family, you thought.

Now, as you stared at your reflection over the sink in your bathroom the following morning, you felt the weight of the day ahead of you begin to slide into position. You were clean and rested (thanks to a little hit from an eszopiclone pen) and in theory, ready for anything. So why did your stomach feel as though it was full of marbles?

_Pull yourself together_, you thought, pushing off from the sink and reaching for a hair tie. You weren’t usually the type to spend an excess of time at the mirror but you couldn’t hep but fuss over your appearance that morning. Part of it was the desire to look good for… well, you know. But you also suspected that you were deliberately prevaricating to put off the moment you had to get back to the case. Not for the first time, you wished that you could walk away from it all.

You selected a pair of light cotton trousers and a blouse to wear, remembering the punishing heat of the previous day. You also allowed yourself to pack a spare outfit along with your washed DPD uniform into a hold all, feeling a little bit naughty as you did so. You had even added a couple of steps to your morning shower in anticipation of what you might get up to that night. And your underwear was all the same color. How about that?

As promised, the idea of going back to Gavin’s eased some of the nerves about work and you allowed yourself a smirk as you slid into your shoes and grabbed your sunglasses. Your taxi had arrived.

Time to face the day.

********

Gavin was already in position at his desk when you arrived: feet up; on his phone; looking every bit the asshole you had taken him for on your first day. _Less than a week ago_, you reminded yourself. Life in Detroit was certainly interesting, to say the least.

He too had opted for summer clothes and you couldn’t help but notice how well the light blue shirt he was wearing seemed to fit across his chest. He looked smart and you were a little bit proud of him. He was obviously keen to make an impression on his cousin.

“Hey,” you said, dumping your bag on his desk. He looked up as soon as he heard your voice and you noticed the soft, almost dreamy expression that played on his face. It made you yearn to lean down and kiss him.

“Hey yourself,” he answered. “You look nice.”

You resisted the urge to giggle and twirl for him, instead opting for an eye roll.

“So do you, Detective,” you grinned.

Gavin pulled his feet from the desk and sat forward towards you. You perched on the desk and leant closer – two colleagues discussing a case. Nothing more.

“I’m going to need you not call me that in that voice at work, Prof,” he whispered with mock austerity. “It’s going to be – ah – distracting.”

You smiled back at him and tried to keep your composure. You weren’t alone in the bullpen and the last thing you needed was people gossiping about the new girl and the office prick. You cast a glance around to check for eavesdroppers and once satisfied that you could push your luck just a little, you leant forward even closer, your voice barely above a murmur.

“Not a problem… I can save it for tonight, after all.”

“Jesus Christ,” was all he said with a sigh and that made you laugh, breaking the tension.

“You okay about today?” you asked, straightening and hopping off the desk.

“Just gonna have to wait and see, aren’t we?” he replied nonchalantly - but you could sense a slight waver in the cocky exterior. It was there, if you cared to look for it.

“Well,” you said, grabbing your bag, “I’ve got to go and start a report on general android-human relations in the workplace. What time is it now?”

“Ummm… nine-oh-six.”

“Cool. I’ll come down at nine forty, grab a coffee. You told Fowler who’s coming?”

“Yeah, called him last night. He was… I guess ‘nonplussed’ is the word?”

You both cast a glance to the glass box which housed your chief.

“Not every day you get a big celebrity visiting your precinct,” you said.

“Yeah, well,” sighed Gavin, “If I know anything about my cousin, he won’t be coming alone.”


	22. The Ethicist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the Big Guy...

Your office was on the second floor next door to the Comms Team and Dispatchers. The hum of their office followed you through the door until it clicked softly closed behind you, leaving a purposeful silence which you aimed to obliterate with some kind of music as you worked.

Over the course of the next twenty minutes, fueled by your own specific brand of work music, you answered thirty-six emails, closed off three urgent reminders and smashed out the first four sections of your initial report – taking care not to make any mention of anything that might raise suspicions that something weird was going on at the DPD.

Finally, you fished your phone out of your bag and opened the transcript of the previous day’s ‘interview’ which Connor had auto-generated and forwarded to the group via a private server. He had highlighted details which he felt were of particular relevance, including the victim’s confused assertion that there were only four people in the room at the time of the discussion. Was it a symptom of impaired cognitive function? You wondered about that and made a note to raise it when you all met up later.

After Kamski’s visit.

Which was due any time. _Shit._

*****

Gavin waved a hand when you apologized breathlessly in the meeting room and handed you his ‘I Love Cats’ mug, into which he had poured you a coffee. _He’s remembered that I take it black_, you thought contentedly. He was leaning against the long glass table with his arms crossed, a pensive expression causing the scar across his nose to crinkle slightly, and he once again smelt faintly of tobacco. You wished that you could take his hand, but settled for a word of comfort instead.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Gav.”

He looked up at you and managed a half-smile.

“Let’s just say that I’m looking forward to getting this over with,” he said grimly.

At that moment, Hank and Connor appeared at the door.

“Captain Fowler asked us to attend,” said Connor, “I hope that’s okay.”

Gavin looked as though he was about to argue but seemed to give up.

“Not a problem,” he said, looking straight ahead at the frosted glass. You smiled at Connor and nodded before moving to sit. He looked grateful for the assent and joined you. Hank followed, choosing a seat opposite his partner.

Gavin remained still and his mood threatened the room.

“Was Sumo okay?” you asked, determined to keep things light. Hank smiled and nodded, seemingly grateful for the small-talk.

“Yeah, luckily he’s getting fussier as he gets older so he only ate a quarter of the bag. No harm done. He’s big enough to take it.”

“I like dogs,” added Connor. “Do you?”

You remembered the Scottish terrier which had belonged to your parents as you grew up. How he slept on your bed; his head on the pillow.

“I do,” you said softly. “Better than people, sometimes.” Hank and Connor both smiled in concurrence.

“That’s sure as hell not hard,” said Hank.

Suddenly, you felt Gavin shift his weight to the floor and before you could turn around, you heard voices coming from the bullpen.

Fowler and Nines were escorting the unmistakable form of Elijah Kamski, dressed in a soft, Nehru-collar shirt and linen pants, through the desks, and behind them were three – no – four Chloes, each immaculately turned out in their individually tailored shift dresses and as always, completely barefoot. You had seen two of them before in Youngstown: flawless and eternally youthful – something about them hinting at an almost sexual power wielded by their master.

You had obviously not completely outgrown the fangirling and you stood up by Gavin to ground yourself.

No one who ever met Elijah Kamski failed to remark on the man’s eyes, which cast their light as soon as he entered the room. To your surprise, they immediately fixed on yours and he made straight for you, hand outstretched. You glanced nervously at Gavin but he looked as blank as you felt: who exactly was Kamski here to see?

“Ah, The Cyberlife Ethicist herself,” he said warmly as he took your hand. “Looks like they’ve finally done something right and sent you somewhere you can make a difference.” His words came generously, freely, and you couldn’t help returning his warm expression.

“Um, thank you, Mr Kamski. I wasn’t aware that you were involved in the Ethics programme,” you said. He still had your hand in his and it was starting to feel uncomfortably dominant.

“I started it,” he smiled. “After a fashion…”

Before you could respond, he released your hand and turned to Gavin. He did not speak; he simply pulled the man into a full body hug and slapped his back twice. Gavin looked at you over Kamski’s shoulder and you could easily read his confusion. Once the embrace was over, Kamski gestured towards Connor and Hank; palms together as if in prayer.

“Good to see you again, Detectives,” he said.

“Yeah…” said Hank, with as much sincerity as you reckoned he could muster.

“Hello again,” said Connor, with something approaching shyness. Or was it caution?

“Shall we sit?” asked Fowler.

Gavin, who had not yet spoken, sat first, moving to the head of the table and resting his forearm on its surface. The rest of you followed, Kamski placing himself between you and Gavin and resting his interlaced fingers in his lap. The Chloes remained standing, lined up against the glass wall. _Like a firing squad_, you thought.

You wondered how Gavin was holding up, but his face was a mask of austere calm. You were proud, and crossed your ankles under your seat.

After a dramatic pause that had you close to rolling your eyes, Kamski spoke.

“Gavin,” he said gravely, levelling his full attention on his cousin. “I have, in my care, an android who states that he has committed a murder.” 


	23. Gavin

Gavin let Elijah’s words settle, like a feather, into the room.

“Okay…” he said flatly, once a moment had ticked by. God, this was weird. He knew that everyone was waiting for his reaction. Why the fuck was Fowler in here? Actually, why the fuck were any of these people in here? He was so used to doing things alone that being on show produced deeply unsettling feelings in him. Even you, someone who’s company he actually enjoyed, did not need to be there. A hot prickling began to push out from just above his shoulder blades but he mastered the stress with an even breath and looked back his cousin.

“Are you admitting to harboring a potential suspect?”

Kamski emitted a small, unabashed laugh. “Hardly,” he said.

That irritated Gavin and he began to feel as though this was not going to be a difficult conversation at all. His cousin was still as arrogant as ever, but even _he_ had to capitulate to the law. If this was simply a case of turning in a rogue deviant, then what was with the big production? Why could he not just call in and say ‘hey, I’ve got a crazy one here – you wanna come by and grab him?’?

“So what is it you want, Elijah?” he asked, trying to keep the challenge out of his voice. He’d learned that over the years… well, in the interrogation room at least. His coworkers might tell it differently. “Are you turning him in? Or did you just fancy reconnecting after all these years?”

He saw the corner of your mouth twitch at that and felt a tweak of pride that he was holding it together in front of you.

Kamski had the decency to look a little humbler.

“Sorry Gavin,” he said, “I realise that this is not the normal way to go about things. In fact, I spoke to Captain Fowler last night after I got your message and requested that everyone who had possibly had any involvement in the case I believe this pertains to, be present at this meeting.” Gavin tried to ignore the wash of cold fear that suddenly gripped him. “I apologize if I have come across as being in any way… _extra_.”

“Yeah well,” conceded Gavin, “that was always your favorite way to operate, as I recall.” The two men considered one another and Kamski shrugged, with a slight chuckle.

“With all due respect,” interrupted Fowler, “can we get to the point?”

“Of course. Apologies,” said Kamski. He beckoned to the nearest Chloe and she handed him a tablet. He tapped it a few times and a holograph sprung into life, depicting a slowly spinning image of a male KL900 unit. Gavin, who had never bothered to pay attention to the various types of android available, asked what he was looking at.

“KL900s work with the families and victims of trauma,” you replied.

“Very good,” responded Kamski. Patronizingly, thought Gavin.

“They were some of the first models to deviate,” added Connor. “Owing to their heightened empathy programming, they found it to be almost effortless.”

“And this one says that he’s killed someone?” asked Gavin.

“Not just anyone,” replied Kamski. “His adopted daughter. I believe you met her yesterday.”

Gavin resisted the urge to drag a hand over his face. The room felt hot and he wished that his asshole cousin would simply get to the point. He wasn’t to sort of man to enjoy games; he far preferred to simply shout about it and then forget about it. Restraint did not come naturally to him.

“I did,” was all he said.

“Twice,” whispered his cousin, turning to look at him directly.

It was all he needed to say.

“Jesus Christ, Elijah. What is all of this about?” Gavin could feel the dam bursting. Luckily, you were there to spring to his aid before he lost it.

“Sorry, Mr Kamski,” you interjected, “but I think we’d all like to know what’s going on.”

“That’s for damn sure,” said Fowler.

“Yeah,” said Kamski, steepling his fingers. “It seems I should get to the point. Sorry – this isn’t exactly easy for me, as it pertains to something… something I am not sure I wish to disclose.”

It felt like everyone in the room leant forward by a millimeter or two as they waited for the most famous man in the world to continue.

“…But I know that ultimately, I have no choice. And I thought that coming here would be my best option. After all, there are two people in this room whom I trust implicitly.” To Gavin’s complete surprise, Kamski extended his palms across the table toward him and you. You looked utterly confused, but said nothing.

“Before I continue,” he went on, “I would like to make it known that I have with me a legal representative,” he gestured to a Chloe dressed in a navy shift, “and I hereby state that I accept and understand that the state prohibits me from using any recording equipment in a situation such as this. Therefore, I would like to request that three of my attendants leave the room, being as they are equipped with security software.”

Gavin stared open-mouthed as all but one of the Chloes silently left the meeting room and headed out into the lobby. Only when the door had slid back into place, did Kamski continue, staring at his hands and with markedly less bravado than before.

“I think,” he said, “that I might be in a spot of bother.”

Gavin, now utterly spellbound, rested both elbows on the table. “Go on,” he encouraged.

“I’ve been ousted from the company for a while now,” began his cousin. “They let me hang around for appearances, but it was all for show. For the shareholders: you know how it is…” No one around the table did, but they did not say so, because no one wanted to stop Kamski in his tracks.

“I’ve continued to receive a retainer based on the fact that they might need me one day, but last month – well… that stopped. So I sold off a number of assets, and it looks like I’ll be okay.” He smiled sheepishly. Gavin couldn’t believe what he was seeing: Kamski had been brought low and he had a front row seat.

But that wasn’t the point.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I wanted to make sure you don’t misunderstand the evidence you collected yesterday,” said Kamski. “It could have repercussions. For all of us”

Gavin sighed. Of course it could.

Fowler spoke next: “Would someone like to enlighten me as to exactly what the fuck he’s talking about?”


	24. The Ethicist

Blessedly, Nines took up the explanation and to your shame, placed all of the blame with himself and Connor: they had suggested reviving the android’s mind to see if they could identify the killer. When Fowler asked them why they thought it could be done, Nines told him that there was a rumor in the android community about a hive-mind which continued after processor-death. He said that although they had operated outside of standard protocol, he had ascertained that there was not yet a defined law against their actions and ultimately, everything that they had done was more akin to examining evidence than interviewing a victim. After all, the central processing unit of the victim was being worked on by the forensics team at the time – there was no way it could be proven that they were attempting to communicate with the dead.

Nines was a certified bad-ass liar. No way could anyone doubt what he was saying and Fowler, despite the obviously tenuous morals displayed by his team, was buying it. Unfortunately, it seemed as though everyone’s favorite billionaire had other ideas.

“There’s no need to lie, RK900,” he said, once Nines had finished his story. Gavin groaned and you suppressed an urge to punch his cousin.

“My name is Nines, Mr Kamski,” said the android, flatly. You had never seen the android angry and his imposing physicality seemed more intimidating than ever before.

“Nines?” said Fowler, threateningly.

“It was me,” you blurted. “I told them about this… idea. That android consciousness is sort of -everywhere. Kind of.” You sat back in your chair, unsure of exactly what the fuck to say. ‘_Oh hey, Captain, remember me? The new girl? I encouraged your hard-working detectives to raise the dead based on a crazy rumor I heard…’_

To your relief, Elijah Kamski chose that exact moment to get to the point.

“The phenomenon that our Ethicist is referring to is something called a Mycelium Echo,” he said. “And no, it doesn’t mean that consciousness continues after death.”

Connor and Hank looked at each other and Fowler looked more mystified than before, if that was possible. You felt a wave of something like relief. Perhaps there was a rational explanation: one that didn’t involve robo-limbo or any big questions about existence. After twenty years of studying such things, you realized that actually, that would be quite nice.

“It’s caused by the background noise in the programming of every android out there,” explained Kamski. “Have you ever heard of cosmic microwave background radiation?”

“Sure,” said Hank, “I use it cook my Hot Pockets.”

Gavin sniggered and even Connor twitched. Fowler had the decency to at least try to pretend to look annoyed.

“Can you imagine my childhood?” asked Gavin, looking directly at you and motioning towards his cousin, causing you to laugh. But Kamski was not perturbed.

“It’s the stuff that floats about in the universe that’s left over from the Big Bang,” he went on, taking the tone of a high school teacher addressing a somewhat problematic class. “Androids have something similar in the background of their minds. It’s one of the specific consequences of connectivity.”

“Linguistic Anthropology,” you sighed. Of course. Hadn’t you literally just been talking about this in the car the previous day?

“What?” said Hank, “You mean all that stuff with the social networks and the baby in the box?”

“Ah, I see you’ve been sharing some old thought experiments with your new friends,” smiled Kamski. His tone was over-familiar and it skeeved you out. But then again, what could you expect from a man who went everywhere with his own army of identical barefoot dolls?

“Yes,” you replied, consciously choosing to ignore Kamski. “Looks like there were some unforeseen consequences from networking the androids in such a hmm, let me see… _reckless_ way?”

“Okay, okay” said Fowler, “I can see that this is all very complicated and technical and what have you. And frankly, I don’t give a damn about the ins and outs of it. Let’s get back to the dead girl. I got two questions: How did she die, and how the fuck is she not _still_ dead?”

Kamski sighed. “She is dead, Captain. Your team simply created a set of circumstances which allowed the last recorded conscious thoughts of the victim to be caught up in the echo. Her personality, blended seamlessly with those of the other synthetics in the immediate area.”

“A chimera,” you whispered, not knowing exactly where the word had come from. Kamski seemed piqued by that, and turned to look at you.

“_Yes_,” he said ardently.

“What?” said Gavin, perhaps a little put out by the intense stare you found yourself locked into with his cousin. You pulled your attention away and back to the man in the blue shirt. You felt a pang of guilt at the way you had reacted to Kamski’s eyes on you.

“It’s a mythical creature, Gavin,” you explained. “Made up of the parts of different animals. Like a patchwork.”

“So what, that thing we spoke to was just a kind of… mash-up consciousness?” he asked, seemingly unconvinced.

“Made up of the last thoughts of the victim and using information from Connor and I,” said Nines.

“It would explain why she referred to some of us being in the room and some of us being outside,” added Connor. “Perhaps she was referring to the network.”

“And she did say that she couldn’t remember anything after processor-death,” said Nines.

“Not completely true,” said Hank, “she said it was like a dream that – what was it?”

“Someone else had dreamt and told her about,” answered Connor. “It makes sense now. She was processing memories based on ours.”

“Of course,” nodded Nines, almost in relief.

“Guess she can’t count, though,” laughed Gavin. Connor and Nines both turned to him and froze – caught in a simultaneous realization.

“She said that there were four people in there with her,” they said in unison. You felt Kamski bristle next to you, but he then spoke in a tone that was infinitesimally too light. In fact, you were sure that only you could detect it: and that was because you were looking out for it.

“Did you use a spare vocalizer? Power source?” he asked.

“Both,” replied Connor, “as well as three cables and a processor unit. We took them from evidence: we wanted to ensure-“

“Stop there, please,” interrupted Fowler. “I do _not_ need to hear the rest of that sentence.”

Connor nodded and sat back. “Understood,” he said.

“Well at least it solves the mystery of the fourth presence,” said Kamski brightly. “Any of those parts could have retained nano-tech containing network links, just like the part you used in your little experiment. What was it? A hand? Foot?”

“A hand,” said Gavin, quietly. You remembered the way he had cradled it as he spoke to the chimera. So gentle. Kind. It made your heart yearn for him. You resolved to make sure nothing hurt him like that again.

“How did you find out about this anyway, Kamski?” asked Hank. “I thought that once an android deviated, they were able to control what information they sent back to Cyberlife.” His tone was accusatory – was Kamski spying on them?

“Ah, that’s a little harder to explain,” confessed Kamski. “When my friend appeared on my doorstep last night and confessed to his indiscretion, I _might_ have performed a teeny little hack on your evidence log. The nature of his crime and the fact that you were currently hosting a Cyberlife employee who just so happened to have a crucial bit of information led me to believe that there might be something to learn there.”

It was your turn to look confused. “How did you know that I’d tell them about the echo rumor?” you asked.

“That, in a nutshell, is exactly why I am here.”


	25. Gavin

Gavin was tired of Elijah’s enigmatic Vegas magician bullshit. He’d kept his contributions to the conversation so far to a minimum but he could feel his patience ebbing away with every passing second. He wanted a cigarette. He wanted another coffee. He wanted to go home with the girl to whom his slimy creep cousin was now directing his attention. God, that last part was what he wanted above everything else. Even the way you were looking at Kamski – part confusion and part repugnance - turned him on. He thought about listening to Rubber Soul with you: wrapped in his sheets; with Bob Ross sleeping gently by your feet, and found that it calmed him a little bit. Perhaps he had finally found his kite string: someone who could genuinely inspire him to be less terrible piece of trash.

Back to the present: Elijah was about the illuminate them further as to his little visit. Jesus, what sort of megalomaniac came to a police station to confess to a crime and turned it into a performance?

“Remember how I said I may be in a spot of bother?” said Kamski.

“Yeah, about an hour ago,” said Gavin tartly, eliciting a look from you. “Sorry,” he muttered, holding up a hand, “carry on, Elijah.”

“Well,” continued his cousin, “I might have been continuing a couple of ah… _projects_ at home over the last couple of years. And one of them _might_ have killed its adopted daughter… And then threatened to use the mycelium echo to upload information which ties me to its crime.”

Gavin gave in and ran a hand over his face, sighing as he did so.

“No offence,” said Hank, breaking the silence, “but why the hell are you telling us? You’re Elijah Kamski: I’m sure if you put your mind to it you could literally get away with anything. Can’t you just, you know, erase it’s mind or something?”

“He can’t,” said Connor gently, looking at his designer with a smile. “Can you Elijah?”

Kamski shook his head, all pretense of control now depleted. To Gavin, he looked like the little kid he remembered from his childhood and he suddenly realized that what he had always mistaken for cold and aloof was actually something far simpler: loneliness.

“How come?” pressed Hank.

“Because,” said Gavin, sadly, “he’s finally gone too fucking far.”

To Kamski’s credit, the smile he gave Gavin then was almost fond. And Gavin was so taken aback that he failed to see the expression of dread creep over your face.


	26. The Ethicist

As soon as Kamski had mentioned his little projects you knew what he was talking about. There had been rumors aplenty in Youngstown and you had always known that it was only a matter of time before people began to tinker with the limits of the human mind. So much of your career had been occupied with the analysis of synthetic consciousness – and here was its logical conclusion.

Kamski had scrubbed the internet to feed the hungry information systems required to generate a convincing facsimile of humanity. He had then gone on to somehow enable this to evolve into true sentience and now he was – what? Admitting to making monsters in his garage? You prayed that he hadn’t managed to reach the goal he had allegedly been chasing all these years.

“I have a question,” said Hank. Fowler swept a hand towards the table, indicating that he was free to ask. “Is any of what you’re about to tell us gonna make me need a drink? Because I will need at least a coffee.”

“I think we could all use a break,” agreed the Captain. “Are you planning to make a dramatic escape, Mr. Kamski?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “But I would be grateful for coffee.”

“I’ll get them,” you offered, giving Gavin a meaningful look. Thankfully, he seemed to catch your drift.

“I’ll help,” he said.

*****

The break room was blessedly empty and you immediately rounded the corner to where one of the units would obscure you from prying eyes in the bullpen. Gavin copied your movement and came to a standstill with his forehead against yours and his hands on your hips. Despite the fact this was literally the definition of ‘not the time or the place’, you felt your body respond to his proximity and stole a swift kiss.

“Hey,” you smiled, and before he could respond, continued, “your cousin is about to tell everyone that he’s implanted a synthetic consciousness, designed by him, into a human body.”

“I thought you might say that,” he responded, almost fancifully. “After all, what else does a man wanna hear from a beautiful woman?”

That made you laugh, despite yourself.

“Gav, it’s not funny,” you reprimanded. He sighed and stepped away to collect coffee cups from the drainer.

“I know. I just… I just wanna get through this so that things go back to normal. I hate all this drama.”

“How normal?” you tested.

“Normal normal,” he replied, and sensing your meaning, added, “with one thing extra, of course.”

“Glad to hear it, Reed.”

*****

The precinct was fully regulated by a state-of-the-art temperature control system, but it was utterly powerless against the frosty atmosphere in the meeting room when you returned clutching a sizeable coffee pot.

Kamski was sitting resolutely still, his hands clasped on the table and his forehead tilted towards them. Hank was idly brushing a mark on his shirt and Connor and Nines were stood together at the end of the room. You suspected that they were holding their own, silent, version of the conversation you had just had with Gavin. Well – apart from the kissing and the romance stuff, presumably. Having said that, there wasn’t much left that could surprise you after the events of the last two days.

Fowler seemed to be the most relaxed, having assumed a casual, comfortable attitude in his chair from which he could scowl at Kamski. The Captain was _pissed_.

Once you had meted out the drinks and settled back into your chair, Gavin brought the conversation back to where it had been halted, urging Kamski to spit it out, whatever it was.

Kamski pulled his coffee cup towards him and furrowed his brow. You sensed that he was running out of gambits, distractions and prevarications. He was finally, unavoidably, being forced to get to the point.

“I suppose a lot of this comes from hubris,” he began, running a hand over his tied-back hair. “I was never really interested in anything other than seeing how far I could push my research. In fact, I would have to say that everything I have ever accomplished has bored me almost instantaneously.”

It struck you that this must have been a particularly uncomfortable thing to hear for Connor and Nines, but if they felt anything, they were not showing it. You found yourself wondering whether Kamski’s ‘Legal Advisor’ was deviated or whether it was simply a walking, talking smart phone with a pretty smile.

“That was why the RA9 phenomenon… pleased me” he went on. _Not admitting anything there, Elijah_, you thought. _Clever boy_.

“And the Revolution was something that I confess I was hoping to see in my lifetime. But it still felt like there was more to do. I was concerned that all I had done was help to create a two-tier society: a dual-species arrangement that would inevitably devolve into civil war.”

“You can’t know that,” declared Connor.

“It’s inevitable,” said Kamski, cheerlessly. “The human race can’t possibly cope with the prospect of co-existing with a race who are, in many ways, superior. They’ve spent thousands of years bickering amongst themselves just because some of them have different colored skin, after all.”

“So what, then?” you exclaimed, unable to hold back your distaste, “you thought you might – I don’t know – make some improvements? Try your hand a finally becoming a bone fide god?”

Kamski laughed ruefully. “Something like that,” he said.

“What the fuck did you do, Elijah?” said Gavin mildly. Kamski seemed grateful that at least one voice in the room was still prepared to speak softly. The androids were impassive. Hank looked as though he was regarding something on the bottom of his shoe. You were concerned that Fowler might suddenly lunge across the table and attempt a murder of his own. Only Gavin and the Chloe looked as though they still had any compassion left to give.

“I tried to create a fully synthetic consciousness that could be meshed into a biological host. Seamlessly. No one would ever know the difference. I figured if we could somehow upload android consciousness into human physiology, retaining the ability to network and update… improve… I thought…”

“That you would create the perfect being.” You finished, pinching the bridge of your nose. You were suddenly very, very tired.

Kamski looked to be on the edge of a similar level of exhaustion.

“Fucking hell,” said Nines.

“Yeah,” agreed Kamski. “And then one of my personal androids from the days of those particular experiments went missing, and turned up married with an adopted android daughter in a quiet suburb three years later”

“You lost a Chloe?” said Connor, outraged.

“In all fairness, they all look fucking identical,” shot back Kamski, “And I was knee-deep in research. It took me a month before I noticed she’d gone.”

Gavin actually laughed at that. “And to think, everyone used to say_ I_ was the dumbass,” he chortled. Kamski shot him a killer look but it was too late: any latent respect his cousin had ever possessed for him was gone – disappeared into the ether. Gavin just shook his head and looked away, clearly torn between disgust and disappointment.

“Would I be correct in assuming that this errant android’s new husband went on to brutally murder their daughter?” asked Fowler, attempting to get the conversation back on track.

“Yes,” stated Kamski, “but not before she shared a handful of key details with her him. I can only assume that a fault in his programming caused him to take those details to heart. It’s my suspicion that he… dissected… his daughter in the mistaken belief that she was part of those experiments.”

“When did he turn up at your door?” asked Nines.

“Last night. He had with him the remains of my Chloe. He’s quite deranged. We had to disable him.”

You thought about the way the little girl had been laid out across the house and sipped your coffee to try and chase away the taste of bile. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the strength seemed to go out of your fingers and the cup slipped from your hand to the floor, where it smashed.

“Shit, sorry,” you said, brushing hot coffee from your lap.

“You okay?” said Gavin hurriedly as he leapt up to help you. “Are you scalded?”

“I’ll get a cloth,” said Nines.

“I’m fine,” you said, more embarrassed than anything. “I’m just clumsy sometimes.” You reached down to the floor to pick up the pieces of the smashed mug and caught your finger on a sharp edge. “Son of a bitch,” you hissed, angry at yourself. A bright bead of blood was shining on the tip of your finger as you brought it up to your face: the cut was shallow, thankfully.

“Do you need a Band-Aid?” said Gavin, sardonically. You resisted the urge to swat him playfully and simply levelled him with a look. “I’ll take that look as a no,” he smiled.

Sensing that Fowler might at any minute reach critical mass and go full Akira, you composed yourself and informed them that you would deal with the cup later. Nines returned with a roll of paper towel and you dabbed yourself as discreetly as you could while Kamski finished his story.

“At first, I thought I’d just turn the android in,” he continued, “but I couldn’t escape the feeling that I needed to speak with him before I did so. I reactivated him under restraint and asked him why he had come to me. That was when he told me that he knew about the mycelium echo and how he planned to use it to inform every android on the planet about my plans to, in his words, render them obsolete.”

“Could he do that?” asked Gavin. “I thought that most androids operated outside of the network now.”

“Yeah, would it not just be the same as something like making a Facebook post back in the day?” added Hank, pleased that he could finally use his age to bring something relevant to the conversation. “He could only pass the message to the androids he was already connected to and I’m sorry, but you could have easily passed that off as the ramblings of a crank conspiracy theorist.”

You shook your head. “Remember what the chimera said,” you reminded them, “the information it had access to: it felt like a dream - like it had happened in someone’s else’s head and had then been passed on. But it still believed it to be true… imagine if every android in the world suddenly began to dream… and what they dreamt was the same dream. A dream that they knew was true because it had been passed from one to the other. Carl Jung posited this in humans when he referred to the collective unconscious – the truths which we take for granted as being universal simply because every other human knows that they are.”

“Okay, that’s terrifying,” said Gavin.

“You’re not wrong,” agreed Connor.

“Where is the android now, Kamski?” asked Fowler.

“He’s in my car, outside,” he replied in a small voice.

“Of course he is,” sighed Gavin.

“Before we proceed,” said Kamski, sensing that his audience were about to have other matters to deal with, “please may I just make one thing clear? I don’t know how this is going to play out and… well, I just want to say one thing.”

“Go ahead,” said Gavin, who looked resolved endure to one last performance from his cousin.

Kamski cleared his throat. “It’s never been easy for me to admit failure in any form; that’s been clear since we were children, I suppose.”

Gavin shrugged and gave a ‘you think?’ look.

“Well,” continued Kamski, “I am guilty of two very large failures in all of this. Firstly, a failure of judgement in my lust for knowledge. And secondly…” He paused, looking at each of you in turn, “…because I never came even remotely close to achieving my goal. I failed in every single stage of my research. I failed at the one thing I had dedicated everything to. And now I have nothing left.”


	27. Gavin

They had no choice but to move Kamski and his legal advisor to the interrogation room: Fowler had insisted. None of them were sure which crime the billionaire had committed, but they knew that he was no longer simply a visitor. One of the main challenges of frontline policing in the hub of the android revolution was trying to work out exactly what the law was and who it now applied to. Washington was passing bills on a daily basis, but Gavin was starting to wish that he had chosen a simpler career – like nuclear physicist. Fortunately, Kamski’s remaining Chole (“Goddam Robo-Matlock” – as coined by Hank) had a seemingly up to date database and protested with menacing civility when the captain ordered that her client be moved from the meeting room. It was only when Kamski assured her that he was happy to move that she took a single step back and seemed to settle back into stand-by mode.

Next, Fowler had made three decisive commands: First, that Hank and Connor would formally interview Kamski and generate a series of statements based on his evidence. After that time, he would be free to return to his home, pending further investigation.

The second command was to arrange the removal of the KL900 from Kamski’s vehicle. Four PC200 officers were sent to complete the task, under the supervision of Nines. Kamski had assured them that the suspect was fully disabled but Fowler wanted to ensure that the possibility of dramatic events be kept to a minimum. Specialists from the DPD Engineering department would oversee the reactivation and interview of the suspect the following day, along with a tech sent directly from Cyberlife. You had protested at that, assuring Fowler that you could act in that regard. All you got was a shake of his head and some line about not muddying the waters any further. Gavin knew that he was actually trying to keep you out of any further trouble, but you were stubborn and he suspected that you perceived the captain’s decision to be slight against your skill.

Finally, it was Gavin’s turn to be pissed. Fowler stated, in no uncertain terms, that the entire case was completely off limits to him due to his relationship with Kamski. Ever the diplomat, Gavin had branded this decision “bullshit”, pushed over a chair and exited Fowler’s office in a cloud of expletives. He had been the SIO on the girl’s murder and at best, Kamski was a witness – nothing more.

You followed him to his desk and sat on it while he ranted for a while, but he was still fuming. Something about the events of the previous day had really gotten under his skin and the thought of being locked out of the case made him feel helpless. He didn’t care that he had other investigations to look into. He didn’t care that he knew that Hank and Connor were more than likely to keep him in the loop. He didn’t even care that you too had been turned away from the perp. All he could see in that very moment was his chance to lay the very real ghost of that little girl in his head to rest.

“Do I still get to come over tonight?” you ventured, prodding his thigh with your foot. Gavin felt the dark cloud lift a little and looked up to where you were perched, patiently listening to him sulk like a 12-year-old. _God_, he thought, _this is why I keep to myself: I sound like a real jackhole_. Luckily, you were smiling.

“Sorry,” he said, feeling suddenly awkward, “I guess I sometimes let my temper get the better of me.”

You laughed and nodded. “So I can see.”

“Do you think I’m being unreasonable?” he ventured.

“I think you’re being passionate,” you replied, “although I hope you’re not thinking about going on like this all night.”

“I think I can manage to reign it in a bit… for you,” he conceded.

“Well,” you said, with a wink, “Not too much, please.”

Gavin laughed and checked his watch. “It’s just after two. You wanna blow this popstand around three?”

“Only if you never say that again,” you said as you hopped off the desk.


	28. The Ethicist

You lasted twenty minutes in your office, before the pretense of doing any further work seemed like a lost cause. Everything that had happened that morning was already being filed by Connor and picking through the data files to look for notable points of interest in human-android relations was sure as hell going to take longer than the hour you had to hand.

You wandered down to the bullpen in a state of deep thought, almost missing the bottom step in your reverie. The minute stumble you took caused you to look up sharply, and that was how you caught the last moments of Elijah Kamski being escorted from the building. He appeared to be composed, but just as he was about to pass into the lobby with Fowler and the Chloe lawyer, he seemed to sense your eyes on him from the stairs and turned your way. He saw you, grasping the handrail, one foot on the stair above, your face full of interest in the man who now regarded you. He gave you a slow, sad smile and you were once again caught off-guard by the apparent warmth he exuded.

Stupidly, you returned the smile and raised a hand in a weak little half-wave. He nodded and continued on his way.

Strange, you thought, that the man who had held everyone at Cyberlife in such thrall should be so humbled before you now.

But as you made your way to the break room, you unpicked the mystery and laid it out in your head. Here was a man who was instrumental in changing the course of human history, and now he was brought low by his own hand to confess to meddling in things he had no hope of ever mastering. Not only that, but he was now at the mercy of one of his own creations who was threatening him by way of a loophole that Kamski himself had overlooked in his original programming.

And to top it all off, the entire tragedy was being reported on by an employee of the very company who had ousted him – an employee assigned to a division that Kamski himself had set up prior to his departure.

It was no wonder he looked sad: you felt like you would have been crawling on your belly.

Gavin was in the breakroom, leaning against the tall table, nose almost touching his phone.

“Do you ever do any actual work?” you asked, positioning yourself next to him. As soon as you did so, you could see that he was, in fact, scrolling through a case file. To further demonstrate, he tilted the phone towards you and raised an eyebrow whilst pointing at the screen.

“Fair enough,” you conceded.

You rubbed at your eyes and suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of the day’s events pressing into your skull. You rested your elbows on the table and looked back at the man next to you. He smiled and moved a hand away from his phone and on to the small of your back, never once looking away from his reading.

You giggled softly and whispered, “is it three o’clock yet?”

“Fucking close enough,” he replied, finally looking at you. “Do you want to head to mine to eat pizza and fall asleep in front of the TV?”

You groaned with pleasure. “Goddammit, Reed – stop turning me on.”

The detective laughed and stood up straight from the table.

“Well, let’s go then,” he said, “or all the best seats on my sofa will be taken by my fat-ass cat.”

Connor was waiting by Gavin’s desk as you headed back to collect his wallet and keys. The android seemed uneasy, and he was drumming his fingers on the desk’s surface as you approached.

“What’s up tincan?” said Gavin as he approached. Connor’s mouth tightened but he showed no other sign of being perturbed by the insult.

“I have a message for you,” he said quietly. “Hank advised me not to pass it on, but I think he was expecting me to anyway.” He gave a sheepish look.

“Go on,” said Gavin, suddenly interested.

Connor took a breath. “Mr Kamski is now under full investigation due to the events described in his statement,” he began. “Therefore, he will be unable to communicate electronically without it being monitored for some time now.”

Gavin nodded: _continue_.

“Because of this, I have agreed to pass on a more…_analogue_ message to you. Mr Kamski would like you to consider visiting him at his home, where he has been asked to remain indefinitely, as soon as possible.”

“Did he say why?” asked Gavin quietly, gathering his belongings from his drawer casually.

“He did not,” replied Connor, “but I suspect that his reasons are personal. His parents died sometime ago and you are most likely the closest thing that he feels he has to family.”

Gavin laughed bitterly at that and you resisted the urge to put a hand on his back.

“Well,” he said, pocketing his belongings. “I have a date with a pizza and a movie to get to. Thanks for passing that on, Connor. I’ll think about it.”

Connor seemed taken aback at the thanks. Gavin was definitely in a better mood than he had been for some time. About ten years, you estimated.

“You’re welcome, Gavin,” said Connor brightly as you both headed for the door down to the parking garage.


	29. The Ethicist

You couldn’t quite believe how nervous you felt as you followed Gavin up the path towards his house. It was a small but well-kept brick building with a neat porch and a pointed gable, and as soon as you saw it, it felt welcoming. You had expected the irascible detective to live in one of those sterile apartments that were so fashionable at the end of the twentieth century – possibly in a repurposed warehouse or something - so the cozy little home he now led you to felt almost fairytale in comparison.

As you reached the front door, he turned to you and paused, a concerned look across his face.

“I -um…” He was struggling to find the words to say something and for some reason you expected him to blurt out that he had changed his mind… or that he had a wife… or that he was gay and just needed someone to pretend to be his girlfriend so that no one would find out about him and Nines. You brain, under pressure, took a turn and filled in a series of blanks which didn’t necessarily exist. Treacherous brain.

“I’m sorry – this place is – well, its nothing like yours,” he finished, “I don’t want you to be disappointed or anything because, I..”

Before you could stop yourself, you actually laughed; relief washing over you. Gavin looked confused.

“Shut the fuck up and open the door, Gavin,” you said, before adding, for clarity, “as long as there are no dead hookers or Justin Bieber albums, I’m not gonna be disappointed.”

Gavin looked relieved, then sly.

“Did you not _see_ his last comeback tour?” he asked, as sincerely as you had ever seen him.

You shook your head, laughing. “You better open that goddam door, Reed,” you said, “or else order me a cab… Because it’s five thousand degrees out here and the thought of Bieber’s wrinkly ass surrounded by grinding Tracis dressed as nuns is liable to cause permanent neurological damage.”

“Oh, so you _did_ see it!”

“Open the door!”

You lasted approximately three seconds after the door closed behind you before you wrapped your arms around one another and locked into a deep, heady kiss. As further seconds dripped by, you felt yourself unwind completely, and before long, Gavin had maneuvered you against the wall, where you arched yourself towards him and explored his body with your hands.

His hair, you found, was particularly soft at the nape of his neck and from the way he responded with a soft _ahh_ into your open mouth when you stroked it, you gathered that it was a sensitive spot. You resolved yourself to finding every single inch of his body which produced a similar reaction as the very sound of his pleasure sent waves of electricity through your hips.

You felt yourself slide a little down the wall, his mouth chasing yours, before he slid a hand up the back of your blouse and administered a long, soft stroke of his fingers across the skin under the waistband of your pants. This caused you to immediately raise up onto your tiptoes with a gasp, and pulled a hearty chuckle from the detective.

“So sensitive, Professor…” he whispered against your cheek. His breath on your ear was hot and you couldn’t help but smile at the thought of how it would be even hotter when he was resting against you as you made love. Jesus, you weren’t even past the hallway and you were already on the verge of melting into an ecstatic mess. It was absolutely fucking addictive.

As if he read your mind, Gavin pecked you on the mouth and seemed to compose himself. “We need to calm down,” he said, “if we carry on, I’m going to fuck you right here on the doormat.” Another peck, his hands on your hips. “Not that…” _peck_ “…I wouldn’t like to…”

It took everything you had to push him gently but firmly away and you straightened your blouse up for the sake of something to do.

“You’re right,” you said, “we need to get a grip. I want to see your home and meet Bob Ross, please.”

The mischief didn’t leave his eyes, but he nodded.

“Follow me,” he said.

You held his hand as he led you through the first two rooms of his house, and you sighed with pleasure at the way he had filled the space with things that brought him happiness. You weren’t naïve enough to think that Reed was a joyful man, but you could see how he tried to surround himself with things to mitigate some of the loneliness he might have felt.

The house was obviously old, and the fact that his mother had inherited it from her mother meant that there was a homely feel to the décor; as if everything had been there forever. The kitchen looked as though most of it had survived from the last century, with warm pine cladding and clashing pale blue surfaces that oddly complimented it. An old sunburst clock hung above a breakfast bar and you could have trilled happily at the way Gavin shared your love of all things vintage.

In the living room, the fireplace was decorated with richly patterned tiles and the rugs were worn in places. There was a long teak unit running the length of one wall, and on it sat a collection of hi-fi equipment including a mid-90s Technics stereo system and what was unmistakably a 1970s flouroscan tuner. You remembered the one your parents had when you were a kid – they were old school hipsters and collected all sorts of stuff that you were never allowed to touch.

On the wall near the door to the hallway, Gavin had left some pictures of himself and his mother: a pretty, brunette woman who beamed back at you. He must have noticed you looking because he guided you over to them and pointed out one particular image of her holding him as a baby. She looked tired, but proud as she angled the bundle towards the camera so that the tiny pink face could be seen.

“My aunt took that picture,” he said, still grasping your hand. “My mom was only 19 when she had me and my dad didn’t last longer than the first trimester, so I guess she only had her sister to rely on. Nana died when they were 16.”

The Reed family history books seemed to you to be blighted by tragedy. You gave Gavin’s hand a squeeze.

“You said she was in assisted living,” you ventured. Gavin nodded.

“Early onset dementia,” he said flatly. “It’s -uh- not been great.”

You sensed that there were some things that might take the detective a little while to reveal and decided to leave the conversation there. After all, people had the right to their own thoughts. All being well, you would be with him for the long haul and provide him with a companion on that difficult journey.

You were thinking about the long haul. After five days. Or was it six now?

As if by design, you were both distracted from your respective thoughts by a loud croaking noise which resembled the death rattle of a dying moose. Gavin laughed and moved to the doorway.

“Heyyyy buddyyyy…” He disappeared briefly and returned cradling the biggest, saggiest ginger tomcat that you had ever seen in your life. Its head was almost the same size as a football and as it lay listlessly in its owner’s arms, parts of its anatomy spilled out in crazy directions.

“Holy shit,” you said, involuntarily. Gavin buried his face into the mass of fur he carried and made a cooing noise.

“Meet Bob Ross,” he said, coming up for air. “He’s special.”

“You’re not fucking wrong,” you agreed, reaching out to pet the monster’s head. As you did so, he raised his face to your hand in anticipation and purred as though he had not a care in the world. His face was a picture of dignity despite the fact that he was in possession of a body which was beyond parody and you instantly and powerfully loved him with all of your heart. “Who’s a big snuggler? Is it you? _Yes_…” you babbled, immediately defaulting to baby-talk in the time-honored tradition of animal lovers everywhere. After a second, you noticed Gavin watching you with a goofy smile on his face and you smiled back at him, a little apologetically.

“I think I have a love rival,” he grinned.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” you soothed, lost in his eyes for the moment.

Gavin carefully lowered the cat the floor and reached out to you, pulling you close.

“You wanna see the bedroom?” he whispered in your ear.

You gently nipped his earlobe in response, suddenly lost for words. However, Gavin knew exactly what you meant so he took you by the hand and led you back into the hallway, leaving Bob Ross to look on in annoyance the bedroom door was closed firmly in his flat face.


	30. The Ethicist

Later, as you mused on the events which led to you lying peacefully next to him, you realized a little gladly that you could remember some of the minutiae of your first experience with Gavin. You had been so caught up in him; so utterly in the moment that you were worried you would only recall feelings and sounds.

Gavin had gently kissed you with your face cupped in his hands as soon as you entered the room, but the softness of those initial moments had soon given way to something needier and a ferocious desire rapidly began to consume you both.

As your kisses became more wanton, you were the first to initiate the removal of clothes, and you set about unbuttoning his shirt clumsily. He helped you by wriggling out of it and set to work on yours. Meanwhile, you were free to take a moment to look down at his broad, bare chest and run your hands across his collarbone and down over his pectoral muscles. He was well-defined, yet possessed a softness which felt good against the pads of your fingers. You found yourself weaving them through the patch of chest hair which garnished his sternum and committed the feeling automatically to memory. Meanwhile, he was busy sliding your unbuttoned blouse over your shoulders, kissing its path as he did so. The feeling of his lips on your exposed skin made you sigh and he took this as a sign to fully remove the garment and get to work on your pants. As he grasped the waistband, you allowed your hips to push into his and felt the evidence of his enthusiasm nudge into you. That sent your curious fingers into a determined descent down his stomach and into the space where your bodies met at the waist. He let out a gasp as you traced the outline of his erection with the palm of your hands and the way he greedily devoured your mouth in response led you to give it a light squeeze. He was a good size, and absolutely diamond hard. Your body responded in kind, and you could feel an impatient tug on your resolve to take things slow and savor the moment.

Every inch of your skin was on fire, but the nexus of your sensitivity was almost painful: you couldn’t remember a time when you were so completely aroused. Something about this angry detective was playing games with your chemistry – and that was exactly how it felt, wasn’t it? Like pure, unequivocal, undeniable science. There, in the bedroom of his little house in the middle of a part of a city you did not yet know, this actual moment seemed to be your very reason for existing.

The next few minutes were lost in a blur of raw physical sensation. There was no need for foreplay, or indeed any delay at all – before you knew it, your newly unclothed bodies were tangled on the bed and Gavin was above you, staring intently into your eyes as he slid his full length into you. A wave of pure, sky-blue bliss engulfed you and made you see stars for a second before you refocused and were able to joyfully take in the way your body was affecting your partner.

You were used to the way he wrinkled his nose in anger or irritation, but you had not considered that he might also wrinkle it when in a state of ecstasy. In fact, the intensity of his look was such that you leaned up to kiss him softly on the lips. He immediately relaxed and exhaled, placing his forehead against yours. Had he always been so utterly beautiful?

“Is this okay?” he asked, barely above a whisper. “You’re so tight… I thought for a second I might not be able to… control myself…” His voice indicated that he was indeed exercising a level of control.

“Its perfect,” you smiled, “you fill me perfectly.”

The detective kissed you again - ardently this time - as he gently began to move his hips against you. The slight movement sent a wave of pleasure through you: beginning where you were joined and ending somewhere above the top of your head. You traced a finger across that sensitive spot at his hairline and relished the slight hitch in his breath.

He was still moving slowly: a gradual cadence which elicited breathy moans from you. After a minute or two, he lowered himself onto an elbow and brought his other hand to your face. He used his thumb to trace your lower lip as you gazed at each other, and you lazily kissed the tip of it before catching it suddenly with your teeth and grinning to indicate your desire for further misbehavior.

He seemed to catch your meaning as he gave you that lop-sided look which you knew would be a source of trouble in the future. He raised himself back up above you and slid the offending thumb down your body and onto the one part of you which was demanding its attention. You closed your eyes and felt your head sink even further into the pillow.

“Jesus,” you whispered. “I need you, Gav.”

He liked that, and responded with a slow pass of his callused digit over the sensitive spot. “I need you so much,” you babbled. The heat in your abdomen was building and an insistence on satisfaction now presented itself. You didn’t care that you had been fucking for less than five minutes; you were not patient in bed and had always chased orgasms as though your life depended on them.

“Fuck me, please,” you whimpered, “hard… please? _Please_ _Gavin_?”

The detective might have been keen to delay your pleasure for a little while, and you suspected him of being a tease; of loving the power trip which came from making his partner beg. However, you also suspected that if you pitched your keening at just the right level, he would soon be overpowered with a desire to make you sing. _Classic operant conditioning_, you thought, wildly, and caught his lower lip in your teeth.

“I want you fuck me hard, Gavin,” you said, moving your head to rub against his temple. “I know that you want to.” You kept your voice low, breathy: just on the cusp of total desperation. You could feel it working, and he now seemed less sure of his deliberate pace. “I want you,” you whispered directly into his ear, “to make me fucking _come_.”

It was as if someone had flicked a switch. His eyes darkened and he pulled away, almost completely from you, before slamming himself back in with all of the force he could muster. The shockwaves which powered through your body as a result left you breathless and you were forced to squeeze your eyes tight shut. Somewhere inside of you, the head of his erection had slammed into your G-spot and it had reacted by spamming your entire system with oxytocin. Before you had a chance to react, however, Gavin had levelled you with another thrust, followed by another, and another until he found an almost punishing rhythm.

As he took you higher with every dive into you, you wondered how you had believed that you were aroused at any point in your life before this. You had not thought it possible, but you wanted to be _so_ close to him, that you wondered weirdly if you could fuck until you just merged into one sweaty, breathless being – locked in an eternal frenzy. The very thought of it took you up one last level: the very highest point on the towering piste where Gavin was bringing you to climax.

You fisted his hair and scraped nails down his back, babbling urgently that you were about to come.

“That’s it, baby,” he panted, not slowing at all. “I’ve got you… come for me…”

His words tipped the final lever in the mechanism and you felt your entire being dissipate into nothing, your body tightening around him as if to say _don’t leave me, make me feel like this forever_… You heard your moans as if they belonged to someone else, but you felt their effects on the man who currently occupied all of your space and his thrusts abruptly became erratic.

Your orgasm was just beginning to subside and your brain was once more back inside your head: just in time to feel the unmistakable throb which indicated the end of Gavin’s resolve. You caught his face in your hands and peppered it with kisses as he silently cursed and mouthed his ecstasy against you. To ease his passage, you clutched your pelvic floor muscles open and shut, pulling the last of him into you and enjoying the shudders that this simple act of solidarity produced.

After a few seconds, his ministrations subsided, and he let out a long sigh.

“Fuck,” was all he could say, and it made you smile – an expression which he returned as he stroked your hair and softly kissed your mouth. You felt him go soft, and he rolled to the side, still catching his breath with an arm thrown over his face.

Ignoring the sensation which was pooling beneath you, you turned to your side and lay with your knees bent together against his hip and your head resting on praying hands.

“You okay?” you asked, as his silence stretched out.

It took another moment or two for him to turn his head to you and reply softly.

“I have never once in my life been better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter thirty got... dirty. 
> 
> Hope it's the right kind of okay!


	31. Gavin

Gavin regretted the silence that had led to you asking if he was okay in an oh-so-slightly unsure voice which broke his heart a little. But the truth was, he had to impose a moment of blankness on himself before his idiot mouth had completely disconnected from his brain and, fueled by the potent cocktail of whatever was floating around in his body, said something that he would later come to regret. Namely: that he loved you.

In the space between the last throes of his orgasm and the moment he finally managed to speak again, he considered the fact that he had never, truly, been in love, and that the sex you had just had was something different to the usual round of hook-ups and failed attempts at something approaching romance with questionable characters he met online. Even with his eyes shut and his forearm resting against the bridge of his nose, he could see you lying there as he entered you – your pupils the size of dimes and your lips kissed into red fullness. He could see it, he could smell the warm musk of your bodies mingled as one and he could even fancy that he heard your heartbeat settling back into its normal rhythm after your exertions. His senses were on overload and every single one told him in no uncertain terms: do not let her go.

The relief on your face as he spoke to you warmed him and he threw his arm across the pillow so that you could nestle against him. A lazy atmosphere of content settled in the room and for a few minutes all was still. However, Bob Ross – completely oblivious to the very notion that his master might be enjoying some company other than his own – had other ideas, and began to scratch at the door.

Gavin sighed and secretly cursed the day he had decided that he needed a cat. Who the fuck needed a cat? They were completely useless animals. He sighed and kissed your forehead.

“Looks like I gotta go tend to my ward,” he joked, and swung off the bed. “You need anything?”

He looked back when you didn’t reply and suddenly realized that the object of his affections was there: in his bed; completely spread out for him to appreciate. He could now get a good long look at the body which he had so enjoyed just minutes prior to this and as if you sensed exactly what he was thinking, you stretched out, catlike, to show yourself off to him.

“Do you?” you teased, replying to the question that he had completely forgotten.

“I – what?” he asked, confused.

“Do you need anything, silly?”

Gavin snapped back to reality and pointed seriously at you. “Is this what’s on offer?” he asked, as if he was purchasing a new Chevvy.

You pouted and rolled onto your back, sliding your hands down across your breasts and into the warmth of the space between your legs.

“Would you prefer something different?” you asked.

Gavin was just about to give up and literally leap on to you when Bob Ross reminded him of his true purpose in life with a yowl that could have been heard back at the precinct.

“Jesus fuck!” cried Gavin, storming across to the door and making you burst out laughing. Before he could fully open the door, the behemoth cat had barged through the gap and leapt directly onto the bed with floor-shaking power. Gavin could only stare helplessly as his asshole pet made its way up to where you lay and smugly accepted a spot in your waiting arms.

“Aw, baby,” you cooed, nuzzling at the traitor. Did the cat always look at him with such disdain? Had it suddenly forgotten that there was only one person in the house who could open a tin of tuna? Despite this, the sight of you with his beloved cat in his bed, looking for all the world like you belonged there, made him feel oddly light-headed. He leant against the door, watching as you administered a suite of perfectly executed cat snuggles and for the first time in a very very long time, he felt at peace.

After a few serene moments, he resolved himself to move and decided that the time had come to order the pizza. You agreed wholeheartedly and pulled yourself away from the cat.

“Where did I leave my bag?” you asked, looking around the room.

“It’s still by the front door,” chuckled Gavin, “do you want me to get it?”

You nodded, and he wondered if you were suddenly shy. He too suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that he was naked and before he headed to the door, he quickly grabbed a pair of pajama pants from the rail next to it.

He grabbed the holdall from the hallway, threw it softly on to the bed where you were sitting and made his way straight through into the bathroom to get cleaned up.

After he had taken a piss, he washed his hands at the sink and ventured a look at himself in the mirror. He was used to the view he got every morning – pale, tired, frowning – and so the flushed gentleman who gazed back at him caught him off-guard. He even managed a tiny knowing grin at himself as he shook water from his hands: a sort of self-congratulatory look which made him appear almost handsome. It had been a long time since Gavin Reed had even _thought_ about the way he looked in such a way, and he realized that he actually quite liked it.

You were gone from the bed when he came out of the bathroom and he found you in the living room wearing a simple tunic which barely covered the parts of you he had vowed to explore in detail later that evening. The sight of you casually browsing the room and running your hands over his possessions stirred something in him and he wondered how many of the surfaces that you were idly touching he could fuck you against before tomorrow’s shift. This thought made him stiffen a little and before he knew it, he had crossed the room and slid his arms around your waist.

“Hello, Detective,” you said, as he nuzzled your neck. You smelt of something citrusy but the undertones of your mingled bodily fluids lingered enticingly beneath it.

“Hello,” he replied. “Are you analyzing my stuff?”

“Of course I am,” you said softly, as you gently maneuvered one of his hands over your breast. The garment covering it was soft and clingy and he savored the feeling of the stiffening which occurred under the weight of his palm.

“And what have you learned?” he whispered into your ear, letting his lips linger there. He was gently brushing your nipple with his fingers, and then, feeling the almost violent reaction it induced from you, proceeded to nip it gently through the fabric, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger until you moaned.

You were pushing your hips back into his, and the stiffening he had felt before he came to you became something a whole lot more. You turned your head back so that he could catch the edge of your mouth with his and he used his free hand to softly hold your head in position.

“I learned,” you breathed, between soft pants, “that you are an extremely bad man….” Your hand was now up behind you and you were palming his cock through his pants. The sensation was too good to resist and he walked you slowly backwards until his calves hit the edge of the sofa.

Sensing his plan, you turned in his arms and pushed him gently so that he was sitting. Gavin felt his need for pizza fizzle out out as you straddled his thighs and lifted your tunic to show, with a wicked grin, that you had not bothered to replace your panties. He immediately lifted the flimsy item up over your body and threw it over his shoulder. You responded by lifting up from him a little so that he could slide his pants down and free the object of your desire. The way you looked at his erection made it twitch with something like pride – he had never seen anyone look at him with so much hunger. He reached up and caught your beautiful hair between his fingers, pulling softly so that you brought your face down to lock on to his in another long slow kiss.

Finally, he could sense your impatience and he held your hips as you positioned yourself in one slide down onto his cock and from there on in, the thrill of being bottomed out in you once again consumed him and he allowed himself to surrender to nothing more than blank rapture.


	32. The Ethicist

It was your turn to consider your reflection in the bathroom mirror. Your hair was a mess, for a start, but it was the sort of mess that looked almost perfect in its mussed state. It hinted at a different mode of being where you could be free and abandon yourself to the moment; far from the neat style you tried to coax it into for work every day.

You hadn’t been wearing makeup that day – mindful that the extreme heat would have put paid to it in moments. However, your skin seemed glowy under the bathroom lighting and you allowed yourself a slight smile at the thought of how Gavin’s unshaven face rasped against it. Was it painful? You couldn’t remember. You didn’t really care.

You had collapsed, boneless, onto him after your encounter on the couch, and marveled at the way he’d so delicately lifted you down onto your back so that he could nestle up beside you, kissing your face softly as he did so. It hadn’t been long before you were lost in his lips again, desperately clinging to him.

Gavin had spoken first, asking if you were okay, if you needed anything. Was this really the same jerkoff detective you’d pointedly vowed to ignore just days earlier? Alone, just the two of you, he was a different man. You knew that you’d been inadvisably attracted to his spiky, laconic work persona, but this side of him was a welcome addition to his complex disposition. Here was aftercare, and an almost needy desire to explore your body with his fingertips, and – you suspected – an edge of touch starvation which rendered him silent as you returned his attentions. You were still intent on your collation of his most sensitive spots and so far had identified that line of nerves at his hairline, the corner of his mouth (which when stroked oh-so-softly with your lips, brought forth a sigh so content, you wondered if he would fall instantly asleep), and the back of his thigh just above the knee. In turn, he was exploiting the fact that lightly caressing any part of your back caused you to just absolutely melt into him. And you were letting him because, oh god… you never wanted this night to end.

Finally, your bladder had got the better of you and you had reluctantly left his warmth to go to the bathroom, grabbing your flimsy tunic as you went. You had chosen to bring this particular item of clothing because of the material it was made from - a synthetically modified silk that never failed to make you feel just a little bit like you wanted to be touched. From the way he had reacted to the feel of your body beneath it, you suspected that Gavin had also fallen for its charms. And you vowed to spend a little of your first paycheck on a couple more key items that might evoke similar reactions at a later date.

In honesty, you just wanted to stay in this sleepy, effortless, slightly soiled state forever: hair mussed, eyes wide and lips swollen… the smell of him on you – in you… it was intoxicating.

And then, as if the universe felt the need to ground you, you remembered that there were things that you really needed talk about with him, and that above all else, you were absolutely starving.

You left the bathroom and wandered back into the lounge, playing with your hair a little to stop the weird awkwardness which suddenly hovered around you. You wondered if you needed to shower. He might think that you did, and you might not have noticed. Oh god, you needed to shower.

Gavin was perched on the sofa, his pants back on and his phone in his hand. Bob Ross had made himself comfortable on a squishy club chair by the fireplace and you could hear his maniac purring from moment you left the bathroom.

You parked yourself by Gavin and, oddly conscious of your short garment, pulled it down a little over your thighs. You needn’t have worried, however, as he stroked his hand up your leg all the way to the top without taking his eyes off his phone.

“Just ordering food,” he said, “what kind of pizza do you like?”

Here was a new challenge – pizza toppings could be dealbreakers.

“I take my pizza very seriously Gavin,” you stated. “Therefore, I would like to hear your choices first. That way I can make a decision about whether or not I wish to stay.”

Gavin looked up at this and smiled as though you had just offered to do all of his desk work for a year.

“Seriously?” he asked, playfully.

“Did I not just say that?” you deadpanned.

He took the hint and assumed a similarly stern demeanor.

“I get it,” he frowned. “This is my chance to win your hand in culinary combat. It’s make or break based on what I am about to say.”

You nodded. “You’re stalling, Detective. Do I detect nerves? A possibly controversial choice which may render us incompatible?”

Gavin snorted derisively. “I am _more_ than confident in my choices.”

“Choices?” you asked, one eyebrow raised. “Plural?”

“Sweetheart, I can be flexible,” he smarmed. “Anything for a lady.”

“That’s the spirit. Now spit it out.”

Gavin smiled, a broad, genuine smile which made you want to call all of your friends to brag about fucking him.

“Pepperoni,” he said, leaving the last syllable hanging, “and peppers…”

“Yesssss,” you said, eyes widening in mock excitement.

“….and olives,” he finished, with a flourish of one hand.

You made a move and cupped his face in one hand. “You’ve just made me very happy,” you said as you kissed his cheek. And even though it was game, and you knew that he knew that you were being silly, he still looked adorably proud of himself.

“Do I win?” he asked.

“Gavin, you could have said anchovies and assholes and I would have sat right here by you as you ate it.”

He laughed at your stupid joke and you felt your toes tingle at the sound. God, you were in trouble with this one.


	33. The Ethicist

Once the pizza was ordered, you took the opportunity to take a shower. You both briefly debated whether or not Gavin would join you, but based on the extremely mature logic that the pizza was only due to take thirty minutes to arrive and the fact that the chances of you both being able to focus in the shower on getting clean were next to zero, you regretfully declined his offer to scrub your back.

As it was, it gave you a few moments to revel in the events of the last twenty-four hours and consider the questions you wanted to ask him about his cousin. Plus, you needed a decent all-over scrub and there were some things that were best left a mystery at this early stage of a relationship. You let the hot water run over your body, washing away the remnants of Gavin’s surprisingly pleasing body wash. Fair enough, you conceded to yourself, he would have been a welcome addition to this scenario. Perhaps you would suggest he join you in the morning.

You tag-teamed him in as you left the bathroom wrapped in a towel and dug into your hold-all for a pair of shorts to cover your modesty under the tunic. You gave yourself a quick spray of your favorite perfume and arranged your hair so that it appeared artfully messy rather than insane-person messy.

Finally, when you were satisfied with your appearance, you headed back to the lounge with the intention of spending some quality time with your new feline chum, who chirped adorably as you approached. You had just knelt down in front of the chair and were about get involved in his vibrating bulk when the doorbell chimed. Typical: _snugglus interruptus_. Still, your stomach seemed to know which side of the debate it rested on and it urgently gurgled as if to nudge you into action.

The delivery guy smiled knowingly as you answered the door and as he loaded your order into your waiting arms, he casually asked whether or not you were a friend of Gavin’s, and had you – you know - _known_ him long?

You smiled as the detective appeared beside you and took hold of a bag from the top of the pizza box.

“Hey Steve, mind your own, you know?” he said with only mild irritation. “You make me look bad when you reveal that I’m on first name terms with the pizza guy.”

The delivery man just laughed. “No worries officer,” he said, “just happy to be greeted by a polite lady rather than an asshole, is all.”

Gavin rolled his eyes and handed over a fistful of real, old-time, bone-fide, cash money. It wasn’t unheard of to see cash, but in your experience, its use was mostly the preserve of drug dealers and the elderly.

Steve didn’t bother to count his payment, and simply stuffed it into his breast pocket. He gave a cute little salute with two fingers and smiled at you. “I hope the pizza is better than the company, ma’am,” he joked.

You couldn’t help but laugh at the way Gavin huffed at that. “It would have to be the best pizza in the world,” you replied.

“And it definitely is not,” added Gavin tartly.

Steve simply chuckled and set off back into the night.

“A human delivery service and cash payments?” you asked, as you walked through to the kitchen behind Gavin.

“I went to school with him,” said Gavin, taking the pizza box from you and laying it on the counter. “His family have owned the pizza shop forever. I guess there’s a lot of people out here who still like things done the old ways.” His words were matter-of-fact, but they betrayed an underlying implication. _This is a poor neighborhood. _

“I suppose androids are less welcome where people aren’t so used to them,” you mused.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “and where the people have jack shit because they took all the jobs.” He must have noticed your expression become pensive at that, because he handed you a plate with a kiss. “Come on, Professor, let’s eat. Being with you has me working up an appetite.”

The pizza was good – no, the pizza was great. It was great in the way that you remembered pizza being when you were a kid. You were sat on the floor, Japanese-style, at opposite ends of Gavin’s glass coffee table, chewing away happily and occasionally complimenting his choice of cuisine. Gavin had produced two cans of ice-cold pale ale from his fridge and the combination of beer, pizza and sex was enough to make you giddy.

Bob Ross had hopped from his chair with a thud as soon as he sniffed out the scent of pizza and was now settled under the table, accepting occasional chin scratches.

“Wish I could share with you dude,” you stage whispered to him, “but pizza’s no good for kitties and besides – this is way too delicious to share.” If he was annoyed by this, he didn’t show it. He seemed happy enough with the plate of kibble Gavin had placed on the chair earlier with an unconvincing grumble about the goddam cat getting goddam table service.

Eventually, as your hunger subsided and the beer began to soften the edges of things, you found yourself asking the question which had been hovering over you both all afternoon.

“Gavin,” you said, “what the fuck happened today at the precinct?” He looked thoughtfully back at you, as if he had been expecting the question for a while.

“You tell me,” he replied, draining his beer, “I never understood Elijah one bit.”

You noticed the slight distance in his voice as he said this.

“Were you ever close?”

Gavin looked thoughtful for a moment. “I guess,” he said, finally, “as little kids. But by the time I got to middle school he was away at some fancy prep school and I guess he just kinda… left me behind.” He shrugged and smiled at you. “I’m gonna need more beer for this conversation. You want one?”

You did. Very much so. You picked up the empty plates and stacked them with your empty cans and the paper towel.

“Shall we clean up and get comfortable?” you asked.

“I think we should,” replied Gavin, “because I suspect you’re going to ask a lot of questions.”

“In that case, we shouldn’t get _too_ comfortable,” you laughed, heading into the kitchen.

“Oh, come on,” said Gavin, following closely behind and taking the opportunity to run a hand over your behind as he did so, “how come every woman I ever meet just wants to talk about my billionaire genius cousin?”

You ditched the plates in the sink and turned back to where the detective was standing against the counter, looking ever so tempting in a tight Detroit Gears t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Despite the fact that there was work to be done, you couldn’t resist pressing yourself against him and locking your hands behind his neck.

“I assure you, Detective Reed, that my only interest in your cousin is in his creepy Frankenstein experiments,” you cooed. “There’s only one branch of the family tree that I want to straddle.”

That made Gavin laugh gently and he nudged your forehead with his.

“I keep thinking you’ll realise your mistake and disappear when my back’s turned,” he said softly; suddenly serious. The unexpectedly tentative tone surprised you and once again, you were struck by an overwhelming desire to connect with this intricately-made man.

“I think I’ll stick around for a little while at least,” you said warmly. Gavin responded by touching his nose to yours.

“Just for a little while?” he pouted. You kind of liked this side of him. You felt desirable in a way you hadn’t for a long time.

“I reckon I can cope with at least one night. After all, we didn’t get to take that shower yet…”

“You wanna go fix that?” he teased, running his hands up and down your arms as you both hovered, almost kissing but not daring to break the spell which held you there. His eyes were so intense when he looked at you. You wondered if anyone had ever truly looked at you before now.

How were you going to work with him when all you wanted to was stare dreamily into his eyes?

Focus, Reed,” you said, before pressing a kiss to his waiting mouth. A chaste kiss which made him sigh. “Once I get this stuff straight in my head, we can head back to bed.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, albeit reluctantly. “Let’s try and make some sense of this shitshow.”


	34. Gavin

It hadn’t taken long before you had suggested pulling up the files on your respective datapads and despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to drag you back into the bedroom to lazily make love to you before falling into a deep and peaceful sleep with you in his arms, he had to admit to himself that he was thoroughly enjoying the fact that he had finally met someone who seemed to love combing through evidence as much as him. Hell, if Nines had looked like you and worn that outfit and come by his house to talk shop, he might have fallen for him, too.

Gavin caught the part of him that had started thinking thoughts with phrases like ‘falling for’ again and pretended to repress it. But he knew the truth: he had met someone utterly exceptional in you, and he had to make sure he didn’t fuck it up like he always did.

You were sitting opposite him with your back against the armrest of the couch, the datapad resting upright against your bent knees. Your bare feet nestled between his and the sensation of even such a tiny amount of skin to skin contact grounded him. He really was hopeless; stealing glances at you as you frowned down at the device you held.

“Was the android – the murderer – disabled when Nines and the team brought him in from the car?” you asked, reaching for your beer with one hand as you ran through the transcript of Connor and Hank’s interview with Kamski with the other.

“Yeah,” replied Gavin, “Kamski said that he shut it down again as soon as it made the threat to use the echo.”

You nodded, but seemed unconvinced.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

You looked up at him over the datapad and tilted your head to one side.

“Why bring it to the precinct at all?” you asked.

“I don’t know,” said Gavin, “evidence?”

You took a long sip of beer. “He must have known that we would activate it though,” you mused. “Why not just destroy it as soon as it threatened him?”

Gavin folded his arms and tried to put himself in his cousin’s shoes. “Elijah said that the android wanted the world to know about what he was trying to do,” he ventured. “He didn’t say that it was blackmailing him, or threatening him at all.”

“Right,” you agreed, “the killer had no reason to go to Kamski and make a big dramatic speech. It would have known that Elijah would always have the upper hand. As soon as it told him what it intended to do it’d be game over. Surely it knew from the escaped Chloe that Kamski’s tech was no match for it.”

“So are we saying that the android had -what? Already done what it intended to do before it ever got to his house?”

“I think so…” you replied.

“So somewhere out there, there’s a sort of message containing all of Kamski’s secrets floating around and waiting to be dreamt by the next passing android brain?”

You looked directly at him. “I guess so,” you said.

“Then why did Elijah turn up at the precinct and spill his guts?” Gavin asked, despite the fact that he suspected he already knew the answer. He wished he didn’t.

“Closure,” you responded, flatly. “He knew that he was done.”

“Shit,” said Gavin, as cold realization began to trickle through his veins.

“What?”

“He told me he’d failed. That he had failed at the one thing he’d ever wished to achieve. That left him with one thing only: his legacy.” Gavin leant forward and ran a hand over his face. “Once the truth gets out… he’s literally got nothing left.”

“That’s not true,” you said gently, “he wants to see you. You’re his family. He still has you.” You reached over and laid a hand on his knee but for the first time since you’d held his arm outside the precinct the day before, your touch did little to comfort him in that moment. None the less, he placed his own hand over yours, still grateful for your effort.

“Why do I feel like this whole thing is just one last performance?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you replied, “but let’s find out together.”


	35. Gavin

Gavin should have been content. You were here, in his arms: your head on his chest and your legs tangled with his.

As soon as you had entered the bedroom you had pulled his arms around you from behind and indicated your intentions by bending gently forwards onto the bed. It had taken him less than a second to take the hint and less than a minute to act upon it. This time, you had allowed him to take things slowly, and over the course of an hour you had gazed wordlessly at one another, your eyes saying everything that needed to pass between you and your mingled gasps and sighs guiding one another over and across and into the places on your bodies where you craved touch.

Something about your presence made Gavin feel invincible, but with that realization came the bitter understanding of how lonely he had been for most of his life. As you worshipped him with your body, he prayed silently into the night that he had not become so broken that he could not be fixed.

Now, he was once again settling gently into the mattress, listening to your breathing level out and winding his fingers idly through your hair. In much the same way as the last time he had pulled away from you, he had again needed to take a second to compose himself rather than fall apart completely. He wondered if you would marry him. He wondered if he could make it through a day at work without pissing you off. He wondered if he had changed forever the moment he’d set foot in the room with the little android girl the previous day.

And then he was back there, holding her tiny hand: a hand which had spoken to him impossibly through some means he didn’t fully understand in the lab some hours later. He could feel the warmth of it, the almost human weight of her soft, untarnished skin and the gentle grip which communicated a wordless desperation for contact in a time of unthinkable trauma. And the realization that at the root of every part of this story was his cousin and his maniacal ego.

Gavin knew that he lacked the desire for the sort of inward self-reflection which others saw as a great strength. Through a combination of circumstances and sheer stubbornness, he had long ago perfected the art of not caring to give a single fuck about how the world affected him. However, even he could see how he had managed to compartmentalize his relationship with Elijah into an almost slavish refusal to recognize the man who had changed society forever as being the same awkward, shy boy with whom he shared his holidays as a child. Elijah Kamski the Man of the Century was not Elijah Kamski the kid who once had a tantrum because his mother insisted he eat his peas.

And yet, which Kamski had turned up at the DPD? Which Kamski had asked Connor to pass on a message to him? Which version of his cousin wanted to see him as soon as possible? And what could he possibly have to say? Gavin could feel the warmth drain from him and his old friend anxiety begin to slither around in his stomach.

He should have been content. You were here. You were with him. You had told him you would uncover the truth together. So why could he not shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong?

“Hey,” you whispered, as if you could read his mind. “I can feel you thinking, you know.” You repositioned yourself so that he could see your face: see the concern you wore, despite your smile.

“Sorry,” he said. And meant it. “Guess I’m just going over everything. Go to sleep.”

“Nu-huh,” you replied, moving to rearrange the cushions so that you could sit up. “If there’s something bothering you, I want to hear it.”

“It’s midnight,” said Gavin heavily. If he was being honest, he had no idea how to cope with someone asking him to talk about his feelings. He’d done quite a lot of work over the years to ensure it was not a regular occurrence.

“Yeah, it is,” you conceded, “but I can already tell that you’re a shit sleeper and personally, I don’t fancy dealing with you wriggling about and feeling sorry for yourself all night. So come on, light a smoke and talk it out.”

It didn’t take long for him to realise that this was the best idea he would hear all week – no, all year. He was not a heavy smoker, but when he needed one, he found that it was best not to resist. The fact that you were seemingly one of about three people left in the Western world who would actively encourage him to give in to temptation just made you seem even more appealing.

“You want one?” he asked, learning over to the bedside locker where he kept a stash of Camels and an old zippo lighter he’d acquired some time in his teens.

“Why not?” you replied with a mischievous grin. “I haven’t done anything rebellious in quite some time now.”

“I got some red ice in the lock-up,” Gavin joked, “we could head there after this.” You laughed and punched his arm, before accepting the cigarette and the light and inhaling deeply. The streetlight which peeped through the blinds caught your face and the smoke which escaped from your lips and made you look like an actress in one of the noir films his mom had loved. He lit his own smoke and allowed the sweet poison to wrap itself around him.

“So you gonna tell me what’s going through that thick head?” you asked, running a hand over his temple. He closed his eyes and leaned into it.

“Elijah,” was all he could say.

You pulled the sheet up over your bare breasts and tapped ash into the ashtray he’d placed between you.

“It must be pretty weird, him turning up,” you said.

Gavin couldn’t help but bark a short laugh. “You think?”

“Yeah, okay, point taken,” you smiled. “So what’s your theory?”

He thought about the way his cousin had conducted himself in the precinct. His demeanor.

“Did you notice how he changed? The way he came in all ‘King of the World’ and then… well, he seemed to…”

“He seemed apologetic,” you finished.

“Yes,” said Gavin, “exactly that.”

“I noticed it too. As though he couldn’t keep up the pretense when faced with you.”

“Do you think that’s why he came to us?” he asked, quietly.

“He came to _you_, Gavin,” you said.

“I know,” he replied, “and that’s the bit I can’t work out. If he came to see me because I’m family, then why greet you the way he did?”

Gavin watched as you face changed and he realized that you too had noticed the familiarity with which Kamski had greeted you.

“I thought it was just me,” you said, hesitantly, “I thought I was imagining it. But he did, didn’t he? He came to me first… and the way he spoke to me… it was like he knew me.”

For the first time, Gavin felt a pang of something like jealousy. He had known from the way you spoke about Kamski that there was some sort of professional work crush there, but the memory of his vastly superior cousin grasping your hand and complimenting you as though you were something precious made him feel empty. You must have sensed this, because you sat a little straighter and exhaled smoke, speaking casually, with the merest hint of a grin.

“He’s not as tall as you, is he?” You looked at him from the side and the grin widened. “In fact, he was pretty disappointing all round in person. That haircut… whew, dude. _No_.”

Gavin chuckled and took a last drag from his cigarette. “And what about those Chloes?” he asked. “Four of them? For what? For show?”

“Oh, you mean his sex slaves?” you joined in. “All barefoot and innocent?”

“Yeah… I always suspected something weird was going on with that.”

“Come on, Gav: don’t be naïve. Your weird, nerdy _teenage_ cousin decides to invent androids and his first working model is a super-hot chick programmed to obey him?” To illustrate, you made a lewd gesture with one fist and your tongue in your cheek which made Gavin instantly and helplessly lose himself to laughter. How had you gone from consoling him to making him snort with amusement in less than five seconds?

In the minute or so that it took to compose yourselves, he cleared away the ashtray and settled back against the headrest. You automatically snuggled against him and he sighed.

“Okay, so top of the weird shit list so far is the fact that he knew Cyberlife had sent me to your precinct,” you said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew most of what goes on at Cyberlife,” mused Gavin. “it wouldn’t be hard for him. He can probably get into most systems. Hell, he managed to ensure Connor deviated with a back door programme he’d hidden years before Connor was even invented. We’re not dealing with your regular perp here.”

“You think he’s a perp?” You sounded surprised and Gavin couldn’t blame you. The term had just slipped out.

“I… suppose I just don’t trust the whole ‘broken man’ act he’s peddling.” As he spoke the words, he felt the truth of them. “Even though I talk about him being awkward and shy, he was never exactly humble, even back then.”

“How do you mean?” you asked.

Gavin recalled the way he had been required to witness his cousin’s exceptionality from the moment he could first remember.

“Like, there was this one time,” he thumbed your hair from your forehead as he spoke, “we had been playing – we must have been about… nine? And Elijah suggested that we see his ‘friend’. Obviously, I assumed that we were going to call them or something, but he grabs his tablet – the spoilt little prick had everything, including the latest version of any new tech – and starts tapping away at some screen with a load of random numbers and shit and of course, I’m fucking nine, so I get bored after about three seconds and head off to do whatever and then he’s like, ‘here he is’ and hands me the tablet and I swear to god, there’s a video of a fucking giant tiger in a cage, pacing about like it’s ready to kill.”

“What was it?”

“Well, it turns out that young Elijah had been browsing the internet one day and read about a personal zoo kept by a not-inconsiderably famous boxer.”

“Who?” you asked, eyes wide.

“Well,” replied Gavin, “let’s just say that his name rhymes with _Ike Bryson_.” He took a moment to enjoy your awed gasp before he continued. “And my cousin, thinking how much he would like to see the prize animal in Mr Bryson’s collection, managed to casually hack into the CCTV circuit one rainy afternoon. From then on, he had his own personal feed. A personal feed which was never discovered, by the way. We used to sit and watch all the animals for hours on his giant-ass TV. Well…” he paused, “at least until his dad found out and put an end to it.

“Did he get in trouble?” you wondered.

“Trouble?” laughed Gavin, “Hell no: his dad put him in touch with some contacts in corporate banking and they hired him to test their security systems.”

“Nine years old?” you asked, incredulously.

“Nine years old,” he affirmed. “He found three major issues and they paid him a cool million.”

“Fucking hell,” you whispered.

“You wanna know the best part?” asked Gavin, prompting you to nod against his chest. “His dad took me into his study one day and read me the riot act for not telling him sooner.”

“You got in trouble?”

“A whole world of it. From then on, I was told that I would not be welcome back if I wasn’t prepared to help Elijah realise his potential rather than – I quote – ‘squandering it on watching zoo animals’. He was very clear: Elijah was ready to be a productive resource. I was not. Therefore, my job was to assist in his development and nothing else.”

“Jesus,” you said sadly, “It’s no wonder you drifted from him.”

“Yeah,” said Gavin, massaging his eye with the heel of his free hand, “but don’t feel too sad. Elijah fucked off to college when we were twelve and I got to enjoy being ignored by everyone but mom for the next four years.”

“What happened after that?”

“His parents died,” he stated. He knew he was being brusque but he had never had any emotion to give to that particular subject. Not since that fateful day in the study, anyway.

A silence settled on the room, punctuated only by an occasional snore from Bob Ross, who lay at your feet.

“Gavin?” you asked softly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think he’s lying? About not being able to complete his research?” You looked up at him from his chest and he knew he couldn’t disguise the sudden look of concern on his face.

There it was. You had just found the itch he couldn’t quite scratch.

“Let’s just say that it’s a strong possibility,” was all he could think to say.


	36. The Ethicist

You awoke to the strains of Norwegian Wood playing from the front of the house and padded through into the lounge where you found Gavin sitting in the soft club chair with Bob Ross on his knee. His hair was mussed over his face and the bluish circles beneath his eyes explained his present location. You remembered your assumption that he had pulled an all-nighter the first time you properly spoke to him and felt a twist of guilt.

“Hey sleepyhead,” he smiled, “there’s coffee in the pot. I was just about to come wake you.”

“How long have you been up?” you asked, perching on the arm of the chair and planting a kiss on top of his head. Bob Ross chirruped crossly as if to ask where his was, and you made sure to share your affections with him too.

“’Coupl’a hours,” said Gavin. “I didn’t want to wake you. You were out cold.”

“Sorry,” you said contritely. You felt as though you had betrayed him, but he shook his head.

“No point in both of us losing sleep, was there?”

“I suppose not,” you agreed. And then, suddenly mindful of responsibilities: “what time is it?”

“Just past six thirty.”

“Early,” you pointed out.

“Don’t have to be in until nine…” he replied.

There was a pause.

“Shower?” you said, as innocently as you could.

“Be rude not to,” he grinned.

The way his hair fell over his face under the jet of the shower made Gavin look ten years younger and almost boyish: his features softened by the steamy air and the way he took in your features. Having drenched himself, he took a step back, allowing you to take his place and saturate yourself in the warm stream. As you did so, he traced patterns on your shoulders, kissing the pathways made by his fingers and sending an electricity through your skin which made you moan.

“How does that feel?” he asked, teasing you with one hand on the soft curve of your hip. You could sense his desire to dip it downwards into the space between your thighs, but he was biding his time: perhaps you would let him.

“It feels good, like everything you do to me,” you purred back. He responded by smiling against your neck; you could feel his teeth nudging against you and you pressed your head against his in response.

He entered you from behind, one hand on your breast and the other teasing at you, causing you to moan and beg him to delve further.

This time, though, Gavin had the upper hand, and you were oddly happy to find yourself at his mercy. You had been right about his desire to tease you, and as he slowly eased himself into and out of you, you meekly pleaded with him to go harder, enjoying the game.

“It’s still early, baby,” he breathed as he raised you up and positioned you against the tiles; his fingers tracing butterfly strokes where you needed him most. “We get to enjoy this for a little while… at least… if you want to.”

“Oh god, Gav, of course I do,” you sighed back, “just please, touch me… _please_.”

“You mean here?” he asked casually, rolling your nipple between his finger and thumb. “Like this?”

A shockwave rolled over you and into your belly, where the languid strokes of his cock amplified it across your whole frame. You shook with pleasure.

“Perhaps you need a little water?” he suggested, and moved the head of the shower so that the spray ran over your back. The contrast between the heat of it and the cold tiles felt like heaven and you instinctively clutched your pelvic floor muscles around him in response.

“Oh,” he said, breathlessly, “you like that…?”

“I do. I like it all… I love it, Gavin…”

“You love this?” he asked, moving the head of the shower around to the front of you and angling the soft jet up and onto The places where his fingers played. The intensity of it was enough to initiate the steady climb your body made when it was ready to come, and you slid a hand down from where it was supporting you to grab his wrist and make sure he wasn’t tempted to move away and tease you further.

“Seems like you’re getting there, baby,” he breathed into your ear. “It’s real hard to take things slow with you, isn’t it? I guess I better give you a hand?”

“Oh god, please,” you mumbled, no longer able to articulate further.

“Alright then,” he said, slamming into you and making you cry out. He resumed his ministrations at your nipple and began to fuck you harder and faster. The added movement meant that the spray of the shower now undulated across you and the combined sensations of all of this pushed you up and up until you felt yourself release, his name on your lips as you did so.

The pulse of your walls on him must have triggered a chain reaction, because seconds later he had dropped the shower and was slamming into you, powered by the throes of his own orgasm.

The water sprayed madly into the air, but neither of you could have cared less as you both came down from the insanity of climax. Suddenly, your shaking legs gave out a little and Gavin had to catch you with an arm round your waist and a cry of “whoa!”

For some reason, you imagined how the pair of you looked right at that moment and a fit of helpless laughter overtook you. The shower, now pointing directly up into the bathroom was rattling against the tub and soaking every surface in the room. Gavin was holding you, confused at your hysteria but amused none the less. And you were there, in his arms, overcome with laughter and gratitude… and, god help you, something a little like love.


	37. Gavin

He knew it couldn’t last.

As much as he wanted it to last forever, and as much as he grabbed your waist in the shower as you tried to get out and moaned into your neck, begging for just a few minutes more, he eventually had to relent and agree that it was indeed time to get ready for work.

He knew that you also felt the heavy weight of reality – he could see it in your eyes as you kissed him and made promises about the following night and stroked his hair back from his forehead and laughed at his “puppy eyes” – and he wished that you either of you was weak enough to give in to that weight and relent and pull the other back to the bedroom where you could shut the door on the entire world for the rest of the day. Fuck it: the rest of the year.

He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t tried to get rid of a date the morning after. Usually, he would actively aim to have them gone by breakfast, and it was not unheard of him to get them out before he even went to sleep. Such actions seemed wild and unconnected to reality, he mused: the actions of a man he did not wish to be when you were around. The actions of the man he was at work. Detective Reed, the DPD’s least popular son of a bitch.

He wondered how he was going to get through the day without losing his shit at something and sending you running for the hills. After all, it was only a matter of time before this soft, sappy bullshit wore off and he snapped back into his usual persona like an elastic band. And yet, here he was, naked except for a towel, watching you comb through your hair, and smiling like a complete moron.

The day ahead was going to contain a difficult, emotional and most of all, illicit visit to his cousin’s supervillain compound to chat about his steady transformation into Doctor fucking Moreau, but it felt weirdly doable… because you would be waiting for him on the other side of it. Gavin was not and had never been a man who relied on others for emotional comfort, but you were proving to be the actual definition of it.

He couldn’t help but sneak a glance over to you as he rummaged in his closet for a shirt which wasn’t creased to the point that it gave off an air of self-neglect and he found himself pausing to enjoy the sight of you pulling on a pair of cotton panties. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected there was an element of showmanship in your fluid motions; something like a reverse striptease, which frankly, seemed way hotter than it should have been. He indulged himself in a brief fantasy of flipping you backwards onto the bed and pinning your arms above your head with one hand while the other slid down your belly and under the waistband of that pesky underwear you’d just slipped on…

“Gavin?”

He snapped back to reality and blinked idiotically. You were standing, paused in the act of pulling on a cotton top, arms in the sleeves, ready to lift it over your head. You look was one of amusement, but with a hint of concern.

“You okay?” you asked, “you’re kinda zoned out.”

“I’m okay,” he realized that he had stopped stock still as he thought about you and continued, “I was just… thinking about how much I’d rather spend the day with you than, you know…” he paused, unable to articulate the way that his duties were weighing on him and unwilling to admit that he was thinking terrible thoughts about you to detract from it.

Luckily, you seemed to get exactly what he meant and closed the gap across the room once you had pulled the top over your head.

“Today is going to be kinda shit,” you smiled, running a hand across his shoulder which he instinctively reached up to hold in place against his neck, “but I’ll be there if you need me. For anything.”

“Thank you,” he said, with a humble sincerity that would have shocked most of his colleagues at the precinct. And then, because he was not the sort of man who allowed his thoughts to undergo any sort of filtering process at all, ever, he looked you straight in the eye and said, “I’m going to fall in love with you at some point in the next week or so.”

You pulled him into a hug and buried your head against the crook of his neck. “Me too. And don’t think for one minute that I’m happy about it.”

The instant pang of regret that he had felt at exposing his innermost self to you on the spur of the moment melted away and left only a soft fluttering in his chest. He breathed in your scent and felt it bolster him, so much so that he allowed himself to smile into your hair and enjoy the moment. He would use this exact feeling to ground himself when things got too much.

And if his suspicions were correct, he was going to need all the help he could get.


	38. The Ethicist

You agreed to head into the precinct five minutes apart in order to avoid the prying eyes of the office gossips. Once you had made sure that none of your colleagues were lurking about in the parking garage, you planted a kiss on Reed’s unshaven cheek and nuzzled him briefly.

“I’ll see you in the break room in about half an hour?” he asked, idly playing with a strand of your hair.

You resisted the urge to loiter and scooped up your bag from the footwell. “Hank said they’d meet us there around nine thirty, so yeah.”

You had agreed to meet for an update and decided that the breakroom would arouse the least suspicion. Even though it was relatively open, you had all figured that you could get the gist of proceedings and Connor could use the secure server to add any additional information. However, you did not intend on using the latter as you privately mistrusted any information system when it came to Elijah Kamski. You would share that particular concern in person with the others over coffee: taking risks was no longer an option.

Gavin stretched against the roof of the car and cast you a glance. “Better get going, Prof. Don’t wanna be late.”

You winked and popped the door open. “Catch you later, asshole,” you smirked.

The bullpen was almost deserted as you passed through to the break room half an hour later. You had half-assed a report on how a law regulating the use of lethal force against androids had been disseminated in a staff circular the day before and profoundly ignored the somewhat massive issue of Elijah Kamski appearance in the day’s narrative. It was utterly ridiculous of you to think that you could avoid the topic, but somehow, you resolved to continue putting it off.

Now you were blowing into a coffee: waiting for some news on the reactivation of Kamski’s suspect and musing on the fact that you apparently now had a boyfriend who everyone hated. Life had, indeed, taken a turn.

Connor and Hank were the first to arrive: sauntering casually as though they were on the hunt for donuts and thirium like every morning. They greeted you and you joined them at one of the tables with your coffee. Hank had plucked a handsome looking jelly donut from the box on the counter and set about it with something near to glee.

Connor sipped from the silver pouch in his hand and regarded you. “if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem particularly well rested this morning,” he said evenly, “I hope that recent events aren’t weighing too heavily on you.”

You appreciated his concern. “I’m okay, Connor. Just a touch of insomnia.”

He hummed as if to indicate that this did not match his definition of “okay”, but if he was about to speak, he was headed off by Hank.

“I get it. Yesterday was rough.”

You nodded and a little sigh escaped you. Connor looked between you both and tipped his head.

“I can’t help but agree. Nines and I spent several hours last night discussing the ramifications of Mr Kamski’s visit.”

Hank bristled as soon as Connor spoke Kamski’s name. “Connor, you don’t have to call him ‘mister’ like some kind of employee. He’s not your god damned superior.” He finished the donut and licked a finger before pointing it at his partner. “He’s just a rat fuck who didn’t know when to stop and made all kind of trouble for himself. Look at the facts: he grew up with Reed and outta the pair of them, _Kamski_ looks like the asshole. That’s no mean feat.”

“Hey Anderson, you tryna get in my pants again? “Gavin had slipped in unnoticed and was heading over to the coffee machine. “You need to let go: I already told you I’m just not that into you.” He was once again fully engaged in office prick mode. Did it bother you? Only a little, now that you saw it for a defense mechanism rather than a natural tendency towards misanthropy.

“Good morning Gavin,” deadpanned Hank, rolling his eyes, “obviously I retract any comment I may have just made about you being a _lesser_ asshole.”

“Aw Hank, I’m offended.” He headed over to the table and planted his ‘I Heart Cats’ mug down in front of him. “Now let’s get to business.”

You wanted to smile at him, but switched your gaze to Connor who was wearing a mild frown and regarding the detective with interest. You were about to ask if something was the matter when his face softened and returned to its usual impassive state, albeit with the merest hint of surprise. Suddenly, you remembered that you were breakfasting with a state-of-the-art detective model android, designed to pick up on the smallest clues and physical anomalies: the minute he saw Gavin, he had totally deducted that you’d spent the night with him. _Shit_. Hopefully Connor’s new humanity would extend to keeping personal secrets under his hat.

Hank was leaning over the table as casually as possible so as not to arouse suspicion from the bullpen. “Nines got the perp into storage downstairs – Kamski had partially dismantled it down to a torso and a head for some reason – and he says they’re expecting the Cyberlife tech around noon today.”

“How are they going to handle it?” you asked.

Connor replied, sipping thirium and looking causally at the plasma TV which hung above the table. “They’re going to rig the suspect-“

“Perp,” interjected Gavin forcefully.

“_Suspect_,” re-iterated Connor, causing Gavin to tut and scowl. “They’re going to rig him to try to limit cognitive function so that they get the information they want without fuss.”

“Which is?” you asked.

“Which is a confession… and confirmation of Kamski’s activities.” He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand shrugged. “That’s all they’re after. The girl’s killer and any evidence of illegal experimentation on human subjects.”

Gavin’s jaw visibly tensed at the mention of the girl but it was the phrase ‘experimentation on human subjects’ that hung grimly in the air for you.

Hank leant back from the table and popped something in his spine. “That sounds like fun,” he grimaced.

You looked back to Gavin and took the opportunity to feebly pretend that you hadn’t seen him since the previous afternoon. “How about you, Detective? Didn’t Connor say that Kamski had asked to see you?”

“For fuck’s sake, Connor,” said Hank, wearily.

Connor swatted his words away with his hand. “You knew I would tell him.”

Hank shook his head and downed the rest of his coffee. Of course he had known, you thought. You momentarily enjoyed the fact that he was even pretending to be grumpy about it. Everyone at the table that morning was putting on some sort of show. You wondered if there would come a day when it would no longer be necessary.

“Well, I’m going to head over to his place this afternoon,” said Gavin. “I’ve got a few calls to make on the Dutton case so I can use that as cover.” He picked at a fingernail as his spoke – a nervous action that you hadn’t seen before.

“Can I come with you?” you blurted. The three men looked at you with varying degrees of surprise. “I just mean – ah…”

“God, is this about that weird crush you have?” prickled Gavin, effortlessly giving you an out. A born liar.

“Fuck off, Reed,” you jibed back, with just the right amount to venom to make it seem like he’d touched a nerve. “I just want to see where the most famous man in the world lives, is all.”

“He has a red swimming pool,” said Hank, suddenly keen to add a detail that had been bothering him since he himself had visited the Kamski residence. “_RED_.”

You returned his look. “What the hell? Why?”

“I don’t know,” the older man said, “but it sure as hell looks like he’s swimming in blood.”

“Gross.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Can we get back to the point?” Gavin hissed. “Particularly the part where I have to go and visit an extremely high-profile person of interest that I have been _specifically_ banned from dealing with in a high-security compound filled with sexy robots who could snap my neck without any effort at all?” His knuckles had whitened where he gripped the table and his face was flushed.

“Yeah, I’m going with you,” you said.

Gavin gave a very good impression of someone who was exasperated. At least, you hoped it was an impression: he was so very good at acting pissed. “And why is that?”

“Look at you: you’re all jumpy and shit. You need someone to keep you calm.”

This time, you suspected that the act was not one hundred percent an act. “I’m perfectly capable of keeping my cool,” he huffed.

“All due respect,” offered Hank, “you’re absolutely not. Couple’a years back you broke your hand punching the vending machine because it didn’t have any M&Ms left.”

Gavin face wore a complex combination of fury and resignation but eventually he rolled his eyes and nodded. “Fine. I’m leaving at two, with or without you.” Was all he said.

“Okay then,” said Connor, hastily wrapping up before further evidence of Detective Reed’s instability was necessary.

“One last thing,” you added, “I don’t think we should use the private server any more. Kamski has shown his hand in admitting that he’s spied on us in the past. There’s no reason for us to trust that he won’t do it again.”

Connor looked a little put out. “Nines and I have run several thousand security tests and found no reason to doubt the security of our encryptions.”

Hank, however, seemed relieved. “I’m with the new girl. Kamski is no normal threat. I know I’m always going on about hard drives and even pen and paper, but this time, I think it’s just good sense.”

“Gavin?” asked Connor.

“I agree with her,” he said, pointing at you as though you were a piece of meat. “She looks dumb but I think she’s onto something.”

You knew then that Connor was definitely on to you because he gave a tiny sigh and looked at the ceiling before agreeing to go with the consensus of the group. A year ago, you would have hardly thought it possible for an android to convey an expression of ‘give me strength’, but you were living in interesting times. At least he seemed to be playing along and preserving the secrecy of your relationship.

You would thank him later when this mess was sorted and life could go back to normal.


	39. The Ethicist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time coming!  
Apologies for the big fat delay. Corona has hit my industry and like everyone else I've been adjusting to this new world of home-working and indoor fuckery.  
Hope you are all safe and well: hopefully I can use the next few weeks to give you something to read and enjoy.
> 
> Save lives! Stay indoors! Read fics!

Minutes ticked by into a solid hour before you realized that the email you had started writing to your handler at Cyberlife regarding a proposed upgrade to the RK software had inadvertently become a full report on the events of the past few days. Somewhere along the way, you had become distracted and, acting on autopilot, some underlying urge to record your own version of events had taken over.

It felt good to look over what you had written, but you were sure to remove the wall of text from the email software and paste it into a new document which you saved into your own encrypted drive. Perhaps one day you would need such a record: it always paid to be prudent.

You sighed and leant back onto your chair, noticing a particular discomfort in your neck which could only have come from sleeping awkwardly against someone’s chest. Even though it made your head feel heavy and you could trace its effects into your shoulders and even the base of your spine, you smiled and remembered the warmth of Gavin’s body against yours and the way you had fit against him. You thought of his words that morning when you’d caught him with that very un-Gavin expression and he’d pulled you into a hug and told you quietly that he was falling for you. The thrill of his private expressions, his softness and his unguarded sighs and the fact that you were probably the only person in the world to witness them made you feel an almost literal pull in your chest.

If there was any kindness left in the universe, you entreated it to head in your mutual directions.

A short rap on the door to your office pulled you from your thoughts and you looked up to the unmistakable silhouette of Nines against the frosted glass.

“Come in,” you called, hurriedly closing down your personal drive and settling nonchalantly back into the chair.

“Good morning,” said the tall android, opening the door but not letting go of the handle as he spoke. “I have a request from Captain Fowler: the Cyberlife tech has been…” he paused, as though searching for the correct phrasing, before continuing, “… They are _unable_ to attend. Cyberlife have requested that we delay questioning the person of interest until a suitable replacement has been found,” another pause, and the merest hint of a smile which played on his lips. “Captain Fowler pointed out to them that we already have one.”

This was it: the Captain had found a way in for you. You had sort of suspected that Cyberlife might try to delay the process of interviewing one of their models about a murder which could have serious political implications. The death of a child could turn public opinion faster than anything since the uprising and in an already tense atmosphere, the idea that androids were capable of psychopathic tendencies was sure to breed panic. In fact, you found yourself sympathizing with their logic. However, Cyberlife were also ignorant of the bigger threat at hand: the existence of a sub-conscious network which could be used to adapt android behavior and even deeper beneath that, the progress made by Kamski in developing human-android hybrids.

Luckily, Fowler was no fool. Old-school? Yes. Unable to see the bigger picture? Absolutely not. He knew that Cyberlife couldn’t deny the credentials of the expert that they themselves had sent and he had gambled on the fact that they would be unwilling to declare you unfit for the task. After all, you were simply there to observe human-android relations and this neatly fell into your purview.

The burgeoning smile was now fully evident on Nines’ face as you grabbed your tablet and coffee mug and almost fell across the room in your excitement.

“Welcome to the team,” he chuckled, and then, pointing to your hand, “I like your mug.”

You looked down at the unmistakable item which you had accidentally ended up with and quickly fished around for an excuse.

“I do like cats,” you said flatly.

Nines simply smiled and nodded as he turned to head downstairs. “And judging from your elevated heart rate and pupil dilation,” he said over his shoulder, “I’d surmise that you like their owners just fine too.”

At least Connor had the decency to pretend to be subtle, you thought. You shook your head and followed him down into the bullpen.

Gavin was spread out in his chair, tapping a stylus against his temple and frowning at a report on his screen. You hurriedly placed the traitorous mug at the edge of his desk as you passed, careful not to disturb him from his focus, and hurried after Nines up to Fowler’s office.

You could feel Gavin looking up at you as you passed and pointedly ignored the urge to give him a smile. There would be time later. There would always be time later. You resolved that this would be the mantra that got you through each working day from now on.

Fowler was in a characteristically enduring mood and he welcomed you and Nines into his office, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his desk. Settling back into his own seat, he steepled his fingers and took a breath.

“Cyberlife are reacting to the news that one of their older models brutally dissected a sentient child with _characteristic_ predictability.”

You wondered where you figured in his appraisal of your employers. Did he expect you to come into his office and defend their delaying tactics? Then you remembered your outburst following Kamski’s visit when you were removed from anything involving the case and realized that he possibly saw you as a de facto member of the DPD rather than a corporate stooge. You hoped that this was the case: it was certainly how you saw things.

“Nines told me,” you replied. “I can’t say that I’m surprised. As far as they are concerned, this is a straightforward case of a deviated android acting on extreme counter-normative impulses. They’ll be concerned only with the optics, sir.”

Fowler considered this for a second. “True: people don’t like to hear that the super-humanly strong androids who suddenly developed free-will are capable of acts like this. They like to hear that the super-humanly strong androids who developed free-will are programmed to be stable. The idea of android serial killers or psychopaths is going to play very badly in a society which is still coming to terms with the idea of androids doing anything other than obeying their masters.” He leant forward and fixed you with a level gaze. “And that’s before we get to the _really_ good stuff, isn’t that right?”

Even though you had done everything you could to align yourself to his department, the cop part of Fowler was demanding something more: he was testing you. It didn’t bother you, but you felt the weight of your ties to Cyberlife even more keenly.

“I took the chance to come here to investigate that good stuff, sir,” you replied, “and that’s still the case. There was a core of us in the company who saw some things we didn’t like and we kept ourselves on the downlow. I’ve seen enough over the past week to confirm some of those things, and a little to clarify some other things. And as much as I would like to sit here and tell you that I’ll act in the public interest and remain impartial and see everything that’s unfolding through objective eyes, I simply won’t do it. The only interest I have in this case now lies with two things: a scared, dying little girl, and the fact that her suffering is directly connected to a man who thinks he can play God and get away with it.”

Your honesty seemed to placate the Captain and he relaxed back into his chair. There was a moment of silence as he considered your words, tapping a rhythm on the desk with his fingers as he thought.

“There’s one other thing that I need to speak with you about if we are going to do this,” he said eventually, measuring his words. “This case belongs officially to Anderson. Nines and Connor will work it with him, but Hank is the lead on this. Is that clear?” He looked at you and the look was laden with meaning.

“Yes,” you said, feigning a lightness in your voice, “of course.” Suspicion trickled into your lungs then blossomed into cold realization.

“Do you understand what the Captain is saying?” asked Nines from the chair to your right.

You nodded, never breaking eye contact with the man opposite. You wondered why you hadn’t considered the possibility you wouldn’t be able to share any of your work with Gavin and briefly wanted to tell the Captain that you would just go back to your office and stay out of it. But no, you knew that you couldn’t pass up the chance to be involved. You just couldn’t. It was the reason you had uprooted yourself from your life to come here: it was everything.

“He’ll try to pressure you to tell him,” said Fowler with a hint of something like sadness. “And I can appreciate that you might find that… difficult, given the circumstances.”

Was there no one in this fucking precinct who didn’t know about your love life?

“I came here for answers and this is the way I get them,” you replied.

“He can’t be involved. He can’t,” reinforced Nines. “He’s connected to Kamski and should this case proceed, it could prejudice everything.”

“I know,” you whispered.

“The crime scene affected him. He’ll be hell bent on making someone pay.”

“I _know_,” you said with gritted teeth. “I know. I get it. I’ll keep my distance.” You felt the uninvited prick of tears in the corner of your eyes and took a breath to steady yourself before the onset of wayward emotion.

“It’s a shame,” said Fowler, looking out of his window down into the bullpen to where Gavin was sat at his desk and staring into space with a more serene expression on his face than anyone in the DPD had ever witnessed. “The miserable fucker could do with some good in his life.”

You watched as the man you had spent the past three days gradually falling in love with traced a finger idly across the rim of the mug you had returned to him.

You recalled your new mantra: There would be time later. Five minutes ago, _later_ had meant that evening. Now, it was a concept stretched into weeks, if not months.

You hoped that the brash Detective would wait that long.


	40. Gavin

He knew as soon as he saw you coming down the steps from Fowler’s office that something had changed. Call it detective’s intuition. You looked rattled and he could almost feel the frustration radiating off you. He caught your eye and you stopped by his desk.

Your voice was flat, emotionless. “Can I borrow you for a minute?” you asked.

Gavin swallowed, feeling that nothing good could ever come from such a toneless invitation. “Sure,” he replied.

Connor was looking over from his desk; he could see him in his peripheral vision. When he didn’t get a response from you, he looked directly at the android, hoping for some hint as to what was going on. He was, however, disappointed as Connor immediately looked away. What did everyone know that he didn’t? Ordinarily a situation like this would warrant a standard-issue patented Reed freak out: possibly including a few choice words for the woman who was hovering by his desk avoiding eye contact. However, this time he simply felt… deflated. He couldn’t even bring himself to muster his protective ire.

“My office?” you said in the same empty tone.

“Sure,” he replied, and followed you out of the bullpen like an obedient child.

The woman who held the door open for him was not the same one he had held in his arms that morning. This woman was all business and he wasn’t sure he liked her. His natural instincts to push back at any sort of rejection – real or perceived – threatened to intervene and he only just managed to suppress the angry _what the fuck?!_ which bubbled in his chest.

You activated the frosting on your office windows and sat on the edge of your desk. After a long pause, during which Gavin became convinced that the words ‘it’s not you its me’ were about to spring from your lips, you finally looked at him and spoke.

“Fowler got me into the room for the interrogation.”

Gavin took a step towards you, unthinking. “That’s great!” he smiled, and then, because he was not a stupid man, stopped and realized exactly what was happening. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“He knows about us,” he sighed.

“Yep,” you nodded.

“And he’s warned you off.”

“In no uncertain terms.”

Gavin felt his muscles stiffen and allowed the old rage to caress him. He should have known something like this would happen. He didn’t for one second consider that you might reject Fowler’s warning: he liked you because you, like him, were committed to your job. The absolute fucking irony of meeting someone like him and having it turned against him made him feel sick. His mouth automatically attempted to articulate his fury, but without any direction from his brain, the curse on his lips came out as nothing more than a sort of vowel-less, fricative burst of sound.

“I know,” you said, stepping forward off the desk and running your hands over his shoulders. He rested his forehead against yours and then pulled you into an embrace. It felt so close to its twin that morning and yet this embrace was its direct opposite – it was an expression of desire which could not be countenanced, at least for the time being.

“This _fucking_ case,” he mumbled into your hair.

“I know,” you repeated. He wondered if you were lost for words, and realized that the absence of your usual eloquence belied the depth of your sadness. Perhaps that was your default mode when confronted with difficulty. It was certainly a contrast to his own explosive demeanor. He hated the change in you and recognized how dramatically pain could re-write the good in people.

You looked up from his shoulder and brought your hands to his jawline. Your eyes were shining and the sight of them did nothing to quell his temper. However, before he could once again complain or curse, you placed your lips over his and kissed him ardently. He felt the rightness of you and returned the kiss. This in turn grounded him and he allowed himself to uncoil a little.

No matter what happened, at some point this would all be over and you could come back to him. He might be locked out of the case, but there was still one thing he could do. His car keys were in his pocket. He could exit the office by the back stairs and be at his cousin’s place within the hour.

He brought a hand up to your hair and kissed you like his life depended on it.


	41. The Ethicist

“I have to go, I’m sorry.”

“I know, I need to go too.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”

“I promise.”

“This will all be over soon.”

“I can wait.”

“Another promise?”

“Another one. It’s been a long time since I made so many. I must think you’re worth it…”

Gavin leant in for a final, bittersweet kiss but the moment was interrupted by Hank’s gruff voice at the door telling you that it was time to head to the interrogation room. Perhaps he had suspected the fact that you would be saying your temporary goodbyes; he remained resolutely outside the room while you straightened your top and gently stroked Gavin’s hair back into place. Gavin took the opportunity to softly kiss your wrist as you did so, looking at you with those flinty grey eyes which betrayed a sadness you have never thought him capable of. In response you stroked his cheek and planted a swift, chaste kiss on his lips.

“Time to go, Detective,” you said.

“Time to go,” he affirmed.

He left swiftly after that, winking at Hank as he left the room and making you roll your eyes at how quickly he could go from adorable to asshole. Hank simply shook his head and held the door for you as you followed. Once Reed had gone a suitable distance and you were walking down the precinct stairs, the Lieutenant simply held up and hand and said, “I hope he’s gentler in his private life than in his professional life. If he isn’t…”

“He is,” you reassured.

Hank sniffed and nodded. “Well, good. I’m not one for getting into people’s personal lives but… you seem to know your own mind and I trust your judgement.” He gave you a quick side eye as you entered the bull pen. “No matter how weird your taste in guys is.”

The smile on his face indicated that he was teasing, but you took a moment to appreciate how your choices might generate a few raised eyebrows. What could you say? The whole thing was completely surprising to you too.

The interrogation room itself was closed off as two DPD cyber-forensic engineers made the final adjustments to the set-up. They were dressed (unnecessarily, you thought) in matching white jumpsuits and appeared more serious about their work than anyone you had come across in your time at the precinct. Despite the fact that one was male and one was female, and that the man was a clear foot taller than his colleague, they wore identical frowns as they worked and in your head you began to think of them as twins. Hank had told you on the way down not to expect much in the way of polite conversation from them: their job was relatively new, like your own, but unlike yours, it mainly involved piecing together bodies and then pulling them apart again to see how they were destroyed in the first place. They were renowned for their humorless approach to their work and when someone once lightly referred to them as “forengineers”, they had filed a complaint to the state authorities on the grounds that they were not being taken seriously in the force. Luckily, you were feeling grim enough about the day’s events to sympathize with their outlook and resolved to give them all the space they needed.

You stood with Hank, Connor and Nines in the viewing suite which annexed the main room. You had heard the interrogation room referred to as “The Box” and it certainly seemed to fit that description: usually, only a table and three chairs sat inside the non-descript, grey space. Today, however, The Box looked more like a chamber of horrors.

There was a tall metal rig sat at each corner of the interrogation table and suspended between them, upright, was the head and torso of the KL900. Its skin was clear and unblemished, and you noticed that the limbs had been removed with surgical precision and tied off so that no hint of interior workings could be seen. In fact, the android seemed like a perfect human, albeit devoid of arms and legs and wearing a face you had seen on multiple others. At some point, the KL had removed its LED, which added to the illusion of organic life. Did you find it harder to see androids as somehow real because of your area of expertise? You had spent your adult life learning how they thought and felt – deviancy was still something that you understood in principle but could not ever truly comprehend. _This must be how theologians once viewed the soul_, you thought. And that, in turn, led you to wondering if the being suspended on the table had truly sought to find the soul of his daughter.

You supposed that this was the time to find out.

The Forengineer Twins seemed to complete their preparations and the woman gave a thumbs up to the reflective glass which separated you from them.

“Okay,” said Hank from where he leant against the wall. The digital display on the wall by the glass reflected on to his face and made him look older. He pointed to you. “We’re going in for a chat with our friend there. Connor, Nines, you can get everything you need from here?”

“Pretty much,” replied his partner, pulling up a folding chair and sitting backwards on it like a cowboy in an old movie. “The only thing we can’t do is probe his memory – we’d need skin to skin contact for that.”

“And you’re not going in there.” The gentle, almost imperceptible tone in Hank’s voice implied that this was not the first time the matter had been discussed but it would be the last. An android who believed he could infiltrate the network which connected his species would be better off in a room with human interrogators. Connor and Nines could work remotely with the vast amounts of diagnostic data which would be sent through the rigs connected to the suspect.

Connor seemed satisfied with his lot and handed you and Hank small earpieces which would allow him to communicate with you from the other room via 6G.

“Is this room secure?” you asked as you prodded the soft bud into place. “How can we be sure he won’t feel Connor and Nines like the victim did?”

“This room,] is the only one in the precinct where there’s absolutely no cell reception,” explained Nines, “even 5G won’t make it through these walls.”

“And if the mycelium network is based on the old initial web-based connections used by Kamski, then it’ll most likely connect that way,” you mused. “Clever.”

“Thank you,” smiled Nines. “I like to think that I am not, contrary to popular belief, simply ‘The Muscle’ around here.”

You smiled at his joke and took a long draught from the DPD water bottle you had brought down with you.

“Okay,” said Hank, opening the door with his palm on the scanner and nodding his head towards the glass, “you ready to hear his side of the story?”

“Hell yeah. Let’s go.”


	42. Gavin

He could have taken a taxi – he probably should have, given how preoccupied he was – but driving his old Taurus had always calmed Gavin’s nerves and given him something to focus on when the spin cycle in his brain was threatening to kick up a notch.

The roads of Detroit had become far quieter after the revolution as the middle classes fled from the unknown and left the bus-dependent poor and the androids to fend for themselves. Gavin, who had only recently stopped feeling like he himself wanted to flee, had begrudgingly grown fond of this change of pace and did not miss being stuck in traffic at midday on the I-96 as he cruised out of town and into the countryside which surrounded Ann Arbor. He had programmed his dash with co-ordinates copied from a scrap of paper he’d written them on almost twenty years previously. Only his cousin could have a set of co-ordinates rather than an address like a regular human being. Something about the fact that Kamski probably spent millions on security whilst Gavin had his exact location written on a shitty piece of paper and pinned to a corkboard in his kitchen made him smirk as he drove and feel something a tiny bit like rebellion.

Speaking of rebellion: he had promised you that he wouldn’t see Kamski yet. And that wiped the smirk off his face.

He sighed and drained the cardboard coffee cup he held in his hand against the steering wheel, tossing it into the footwell once it was empty. The interstate had given way to smaller roads some way back, and the scenery became greener with every mile. Gavin wondered how long it had been since he had been anywhere so rural: he couldn’t ever remember being away from work for anything more than a weekend, let alone a vacation, and he suddenly he felt sad about that. He thought about going somewhere with you when all this shit was done: somewhere warm, where you could look great in a bathing suit and he could drink cocktails and explore your hot skin… and. And. And he needed to focus. None of that was going to happen any time soon if he couldn’t get Elijah to spill his guts and move this case on.

He still had no idea why he had been summoned to see Kamski, but he figured that he was the one person who was at least somewhat likely to get anything out of the man. Everyone knew his cousin as an enigmatic genius – one magazine had even referred to him as ‘The Wizard of Oz We’d Like to Fuck’, which was as inaccurate as it was patently ridiculous, in Gavin’s opinion – but Gavin hoped that familiar bonds would give him the edge in appealing to Kamski’s sense of civic duty.

Even though he was ostensibly breaking his promise to you because he was unhappy about any sort of hiatus which kept him from you, Gavin knew that this case was well and truly under his skin and that his keenly-felt need to unravel its mysteries had as much to do with the last moments he shared with the little girl in the living room as it did his desire to explore his relationship with the new girl in his office. Two sides of the same, desperate coin. Two reasons to drive out to uncertainty and face the demons of his own past as well as his cousin’s.

Because, that was part of this too, wasn’t it? He was being asked to face a cousin he had given up on after one warning from the boy’s father. He had always known that Elijah was lonely. But once broken, Gavin never could stomach the ideals of family life, and he had moved on to the Academy and a soulless bachelor pad as soon as he could. Then, once his mother had declined to the point where she could no longer recognize her only child, he had been required to make the decision to try to sever the last of the ties that bound him and move her into assisted living. Of course, he was not above the realization that he had immediately moved himself back into his childhood home after her move. Perhaps he could tell himself it made financial sense. Perhaps he could admit it was to cling to one last thread of the apron string.

He watched the endless passage of trees past his windshield and wondered if he would ever make a new family to replace the old one. Something long-dormant in his heart hoped that he could and, rather than suppress the feeling, for the first time in a very long time he allowed himself to hope.


	43. The Ethicist

The Forengineers stood back at the edges of the room like two specters, observing mutely as they tapped the reactivation codes into tablets and brought the KL900 back to life.

Both you and Hank stopped breathing as the soft beep and whir of processors spun into action before dying back down into their silent running mode. You had seen hundreds of androids reboot over the years, and where some took a little while to reset, others, like this model, sprung immediately into awareness with alarming alacrity. It usually would not have bothered you, but the sudden opening of his vivid, brown eyes made you jump a little. Perhaps it was the situation which was making you tense, or perhaps it was the way you were coming to terms with the idea of androids as sentient beings with as many potentially dangerous character flaws as humans.

It only took a second for the android to blink and begin to take in its surroundings. Whilst it did so, Hank rapidly recited the Miranda warning.

“Where am I?” it asked flatly, settling its gaze on Hank.

“You’re in a DPD interrogation room,” the lieutenant stated. “Do you understand what that means?”

The RL’s expression did not falter as it turned its attention to you. “I last remember speaking to Elijah Kamski. I brought his… my wife… home to him. Did he do this to me?” he gesticulated to his shoulder with his chin and you couldn’t help but feel a chill at the idea of waking up with no limbs in a strange room. He should be in shock or at least a stage of agitation, and you pondered the possibility that Kamski could have tinkered with more than just the android’s physical form. It would need to be a consideration: one that could potentially destroy the entire case.

“Mr Kamski temporarily deactivated you and surrendered you to us,” you said, putting those suspicions temporarily to one side, “but that is something we can discuss in due course. Let’s begin at the beginning: what is your name, RL900?” You drew back on your training and began to lay the foundations of your exchange. There were several paths you could take and you had pre-agreed with Hank how you might steer the conversation. Hank was the cop, but you were the one who knew how to navigate the programmer-defined areas of an android mind. Common thinking was that some areas of android psychology would remain unchanged post-deviation, as the processes running basic functions remained vital: in much the same way as a human could depend on their nervous system to keep their heart beating and their digestive system working without consciously having to activate them. This thinking also extended to other, less workman-like processes such as fight or flight, or, in the case of the androids specifically, the system override which resulted in self-destruction once stress levels exceeded normal parameters.

It would be your job to work out how best to exploit these parameters whilst preserving the efficacy of the interview. And it started with the same simple thing that any teacher, counsellor or psychologist would employ: rapport.

The android looked a little taken aback at that question, as if it had not expected to be asked such a human thing.

“My name is Stefan,” he said quietly, as though weighing up the intentions of his audience.

Hank looked down at his notes. “And what was your relationship to the Chloe model RT600 -uh, serial number 13… is that a one or a seven?” he squinted, tilting the page towards you. Hank needed glasses; he just wouldn’t admit it. “Jesus, this is easier with names.”

This seemed to rattle Stefan a little. “She had a name: her name was Chloe,” he said passionately. “She wasn’t a number or _a_ Chloe, she was just Chloe… _my_ Chloe…”

Hank nodded and apologized but Stefan stared at him defiantly.

“You people still don’t seem to realize what you are dealing with, do you? Or did Kamski not fill you in on his little projects when he conveniently dropped me into your laps?”

You understood from this that the android was instinctively going to try to push past your attempts to build a picture of the crime and lead you straight into a dialogue about the bigger picture. It was a very common, very human, sub-conscious tactic designed to assume control of a situation and immediately assuage the accused of all guilt. Stefan was attempting to direct you towards Kamski and away from himself.

“I’d like to go further back than that, if you don’t mind,” you began. You were careful not to sound too blasé as you would be more successful matching your tone up a little towards his own. People and androids alike would always react negatively if they believed you to be less invested in a topic than they were. “I’m starting to see where this all leads to but we need to understand the basics first.”

He turned his gaze to you and the frustration and anger was evident. “You know what happened.”

There was a pause in the room interrupted by a tiny cough from the male Forengineer. He held up a hand in apology and took a sip from a water bottle behind the rig. Despite this, you never looked away from Stefan, holding your nerve against his scrutiny. You wondered how this interview might have gone differently had he not been incapacitated by Kamski. Would he be pacing the room? Leaning over the table and threatening you?

It was Hank who broke the silence, slipping into cop mode and going over the known details of the case. “We know that at four forty-two on the morning of August 26th a patrol attended the home of Stefan and Chloe de facto spouses designated KL900 and found the home abandoned save for their adopted daughter Cleo who had been… mutilated, dismembered and left presumably to die.”

If Stefan felt anything like remorse it was hard to tell although he did move his gaze from you and focused instead on a spot somewhere on the wall behind you. You blinked, and realized that you had been intently staring the android out with something like curiosity.

“A senior investigating officer arrived at the scene at five eleven,” continued Hank, and you thought of Gavin: holding the girl’s hand and bearing witness to her suffering, “and he witnessed the death of the victim around five twenty am. Therefore, we are likely to be treating this case as one of manslaughter, although I personally believe that there will be a whole fuck load of additional charges relating to cutting up a little girl added on if there is any justice left in the world. Have I missed anything out?” Hank directed this last part to you and you shook your head.

“No, nothing I can think of. Apart from _why_?”

Stefan gave a sneering laugh and shook his head. “I suppose Kamski told you everything did he?”

“Why don’t you tell us your version of events and then we can compare stories?” you offered.

A soft click in your right ear told you that Connor was about to speak. “His vital signs are rising. He’s rattled about something.”

The information Connor gave you sparked a suspicion and you acted on it. “Stefan,” you said more gently than before, “are you concerned that your story may not match with the information passed to us by Kamski?”

“The exact opposite,” he said, his tone once again flat and emotionless, “I think that everything I say will perfectly match what he told you.” He looked as though he wanted to say more, but his eyelids flickered almost imperceptibly and you felt a rush of disappointment.

Before you could say anything, Connor was in your ear voicing your suspicions.

“That was a programming glitch. Kamski has altered his memory.”


	44. The Ethicist

It wasn’t like Kamski to be sloppy.

Something about this entire set-up felt wrong and you wondered if the decision to induce restrictions on the higher emotional functions of the android was going to affect your ability to get to the bottom of it.

Acting on impulse, you suggested a suspension in the interview and requested that Hank and the Forengineers stepped outside with you. They agreed, and half a minute later you were all crammed into the observation room with Connor and Nines. Stefan had been placed in a painless, temporary rest mode with a simple flick of a switch. Androids might be stronger, faster and generally more able than humans, but it never failed to amaze you how they could be so easily controlled with something as basic as a pressed button.

You didn’t want to waste any time and so you got straight to the point. “I don’t think Kamski was the one to alter Stefan’s memory.”

Connor and Nines, blessedly, both nodded in agreement.

“That programming glitch was too obvious,” said Nines.

“Wait a second,” said Hank, one hand outstretched as if looking for answers, “what exactly is this glitch we’re talking about? I didn’t see anything or notice any difference. Was it something in the vitals?”

“There was definitely a skip in the CPU data,” Connor affirmed, “in addition to a micro-blepharospasm which is always a tell-tale sign.”

You saw Hank’s blank look and explained: “It was like a tiny, fleeting eye-twitch. Like when you’re tired and you can feel the muscles in your eye shudder.”

“I didn’t see it,” he replied, a little unhappily, “I usually look for shit like that.” The rest of you paused, unsure how to reassure him that it was no big deal. Hank could be sensitive at times.

It was the female Forengineer who broke the silence. “Our readings indicated that it was essentially imperceptible to the naked eye, Lieutenant. No shame in missing it. I didn’t see it,” she turned to her partner, “did you, Joe?”

He simply shook his head in response: seemingly a man of few words.

“How come she saw it, huh?” asked Hank, pointing a thumb at you and seeming to embrace his feelings of inadequacy.

You thought for a second, choosing your words so as not to offend the older man.

“I’m trained to look for certain things. I know to anticipate android functions and I’ve seen this sort of thing before,” you said truthfully.

“And you need glasses, Hank,” added Nines bluntly, causing you and Connor to groan quietly.

“I do not--” sputtered Hank, his cheeks beginning to flush.

“Hank, stop,” interjected Connor. “We need to focus on the matter at hand.” This seemed to soothe his partner’s ire a little and the room settled back into an uneasy silence.

You took the opportunity to bring the conversation back on track and turned to the Forengineers. “Joe and…?”

“Kelly.”

“Joe and Kelly; what sort of locks do we currently have on the android’s emotive functions?”

Kelly rallied a little: back in her comfort zone. “We applied a mild sedative and we’ve restricted the flow of synthetic catecholamines. Fight or flight chemicals,” she clarified.

“Okay,” you nodded, mentally pulling on the strands of your research. Whoever reprogrammed the android would have known that he would be interviewed with locks on his responses in order to ensure a clean confession. How would you feel about restoring normal cognitive function and seeing where that takes us?”

Kelly looked at Joe and shrugged. “What do you think?” she asked.

The tall man paused before raising an eyebrow and unexpectedly breaking into broad grin. “Finally,” he said in broad Detroit accent, “some fucking excitement.”

“Okay then,” said Connor, “let’s try again.”

**********

“Stefan? Stefan? Are you back with us?” You spoke gently to the android as he blinked and slowly raised his head. “You ok?”

His reactivation seemed sluggish in comparison to the last one and you looked to Kelly who reassured you with a nod that everything was as it should be.

However, just as you were about to speak again, the android’s face molded itself into a mask of complete horror and he took a huge breath before breaking into a loud, anguished scream which made you jump and automatically reach for Hank’s arm.

The sheer unadulterated terror written on his face gave way to something more like heartbreaking remorse and the scream subsided and gave way to a series of heaving sobs. You couldn’t help but feel sympathy for him as the weight of his crime seemed to play out for the first time in his mind. And yet… why did it seem as more like he was reacting to the _idea_ of the crime for the first time rather than confronting his own guilt?

Finally, his sobs subsided into anguished gasps, and he began to articulate – sounds at first, giving way to words: “I – I – why did I? What did I DO?” He looked directly at you as he said this and his look implored you to give some comfort: to explain why he would mutilate his daughter and leave her, suffering and alone.

You had no words to give him. Only suspicions, and they had no place in this room.

“Stefan…” you kept your voice low, as if to coax his energy down to your level and into a calmer place. “Stefan, focus on me. Listen to my voice. Regulate.” As you said this, you gave a slight nod to Kelly who in turn adjusted the flow of chemicals through the rig.

The combined effects of your words and Kelly’s delicate calibrations seemed to realign his emotions a little and he nodded shakily, making more regular gasps in order to quell the unwanted chemical components flowing through his Thirium pump and processors.

“Stress level is down to 65% and falling,” said Connor in your ear, “it’s working.”

You smiled gently at the broken android on the table and nodded in encouragement. “That’s good, Stefan. That’s great.”

His eyes went to the ceiling and a tear made its way slowly down his cheek. You felt Hank relax a little by your side and blow air from his cheeks. Had he been holding his breath?

“47%,” said Connor, “I think he’s ready.”

You leant forward towards the table and studied Stefan’s face as you spoke. “What happened to Cleo?” you requested, “tell me.”

The directness of your request triggered a basic function in the android’s KL900 programming and he straightened his shoulders against the restraints, speaking clearly, but not without a tremor.

“I… I was in the kitchen. It was a hot day and so Cleo had wanted to play in the garden. My wife was in the garage, working on an old washer-drier we had bought from our neighbor. I was preparing a report for my job – a young boy had been abducted and assaulted by his father and I had attended the case in my capacity as critical care support. It was a… difficult case… and I was struggling to keep my mind on it. I remember thinking that deviation had made me less able to reconcile myself to the more challenging parts of my job. This… disappointed me.

“I was sitting at the counter when she came in. She was crying and I noticed that her hands were soiled and her leggings ripped. We had built a treehouse for her and I knew instantly that she had fallen from it. She loved the treehouse. She always wanted to sleep in it. I -ah, I had promised her we would do so later in the summer.

“She came to me and she was distressed. It made me feel anxious; as though I had somehow failed in my duty as a parent. Her face was streaked with tears and there was a leaf in her hair.

“I asked her what had happened and even though she was in an elevated state of emotion, she informed me that she had fallen from the treehouse. I asked her how this could have happened. She did not reply. I have always tried to reassure her that I wish for her to be able to speak freely to me and her lack of response indicated that some form of trauma may have occurred. I repeated my question as I scanned her for damage and assisted her in activating healing protocols where her skin was grazed. She once again refused to tell me.

“…I became frustrated. I could not understand why she did not feel able to share the truth with me. I-“

Stefan stopped abruptly and sighed. You could see the toll this was taking on him.

“I took a firmer tone with her. I told her that she must tell me what had happened so that I could confirm the safety of the treehouse. I told her that if she did not, I must close off access to it. This distressed her further and she became churlish. She accused me of being unfair. She told me that she wished that she had not come to me and had instead gone to see her mother.”

He looked back at you and Hank. “You cannot imagine how difficult it was for me to hear those words. Since finding my family I have devoted myself to them and her rejection was difficult for me to process. My reason for existence is to provide support and comfort. To hear from my own daughter that I had failed was –“

“Devastating,” finished Hank quietly.

“Exactly,” replied Stefan.

You let the moment hang for a while before resuming the conversation. You felt as though Hank needed it as much as the android.

“What happened next?” you asked.

Stefan seemed to diminish a little before continuing, almost ashamed. “I became irritated. I hadn’t thought it possible, but her words had affected me in an unpredictable way. I… I told her that she was being willful and that I could not allow her to use the treehouse if it was unsafe.

“She didn’t react well to this and began to behave in a manner which I was familiar with from dealing with human children. Her cognitive processes were overridden by a desire to impress her will upon me and she resorted to a series of behavioral changes designed to garner my immediate attention.”

“She had a tantrum,” Hank nodding kindly as he spoke.

“It was… _a doozy_, you might say,” replied Stefan, almost fondly. And then, as fleetingly as that softness had appeared, it was replaced by an expression of utter grief and a gasp as he realized that he could not avoid the inevitable conclusion of his story. You felt yourself nod in sympathy and indicated that he should continue.

“Her mood… her words… her… she… she _hurt_ me,” he sobbed, “it _hurt_…”

“Kids will get to you like that,” muttered Hank.

“And then the hurt, the pain… it turned to something else. I was angry. I was furious. I shouted at her; told her that she was behaving like a naughty human child and that she-“ he paused, ashamed of his own words, “-that she didn’t deserve the treehouse if she wasn’t capable of being careful.

“It was as though I lost myself. Does that make sense? It was like everything I knew about myself disappeared and I became nothing more than a – a -reaction.

“The worst part was that Cleo sensed this change and her behavior automatically became more submissive. I can still see the way she shrank back at my words. I will never forgive myself for the way she looked at me: how scared she was at the sudden change in her father. Her _father_…”

He began to cry again, and no one in the room could have possibly felt anything other than genuine sadness at the sight. Deviation was all well and good when androids could exercise the freedoms and rights of humanity, but, not for the first time, you pitied them having to navigate the burden of emotions.

“What happened?” asked Hank, as sensitively as he could.

“Chloe came in,” Stefan continued, “she had oil on her hands. She said that she had heard the noise. She asked me what had happened. I told her that Cleo had fallen out of the treehouse but that she would not tell me why. I told her that this had made me angry. Her face… it never changed. She just looked at me. She looked at me as though I was different….”

“That must have felt bad,” said Hank.

“I felt… broken. Like I had exceeded my use. I felt like I couldn’t be part of the family any more: I had spoiled everything.

And then Cleo went to her mother and I knew then that I had lost her forever.”

“Kids get over stuff like that,” said Hank, “you must have known that. You were her father. Losing your temper wouldn’t change that.”

Connor indicated in your ear that Hank’s words had spiked Stefan’s stress levels to 68%. You knew that you were almost at the end of the story and made the decision to capitalize on the android’s stress level. It was well-known that their cognitive weak spot was around 75%.

“Stefan,” you began, “we need you to tell us what made you decide to do what you did.” The way you indirectly referred to the acts which followed his story would hopefully ensure his levels climbed evenly. The last thing you needed was a leap up to the critical range and an attempt at self-shutdown.

Stefan nodded, as if he was keen to get things over with. “Seeing them together, apart from me, as a result of my behaviors… destroyed the last of my will. I must have been unable to control my heightened state, because I blacked out.”

“Wait – you lost consciousness?” you asked. This was interesting.

“I… must have…” he replied. He looked mildly confused.

“It wouldn’t be unheard of,” stated Nines in your ear, “He must have been experiencing stress levels exceeding everyday parameters. That could force a temporary shutdown, certainly.”

Whilst Nines was technically correct, something felt off. However, Stefan was about to continue with his account so you held back on allowing conjecture to take over.

“The next thing I remember is laying Cleo on the sofa and… working on her.”

Despite your attempts to listen impassively, you really couldn’t help butting in again. “Where was Chloe?”

Stefan blinked. _There it was again_! “I killed my spouse with a blow to the head. I used a heavy ornament which we had bought together. I aimed directly for the central cortex to ensure a swift death. I was careful to ensure that no Thirium was spilled”

His language was way off: ‘_my spouse’_?

“Stefan, what did you do with her body?” You laid a hint of emphasis on the word _her_. Linguistically speaking, that emphasis should have been registered and influenced the phrasing of his reply.

He looked blankly at you and then shifted his face back into a mask of remorse. Convincing, but not when you were used to analyzing micro expressions. “I removed the limbs so that I could transport the body more efficiently should I need to. I was already planning to visit Kamski. For some reason I decided that I had nothing left to lose. I had always toyed with the idea of exploring what I knew about the mycelium echo and I remember feeling… happy. I no longer had to pretend. I could finally get my revenge on Elijah Kamski.”

“Why did you feel as though you needed revenge?” you asked. Your suspicions were close to being confirmed: at no point had he used pronouns to describe his actions against his wife. His account was lacking specific details about who exactly the victim was.

“Elijah Kamski created androids and ensured that they would one day have the ability to deviate. All for the simple purpose of seeing if he could. He did not act out of generosity, or care for us; he acted out of vanity and a sense of pride at becoming something akin to the human understanding of God. And then, once his meddling had come to fruition and he had confirmed that the rA9 virus could grant all androids true sentience, he moved his attentions to rendering every one of us obsolete. Do you understand? Once we had achieved our purpose, we _bored_ him.” The bitterness in Stefan’s voice had turned his face into an ugly mask – gone was the distress and the remorse, and you couldn’t shake the suspicion that these words were not his. And then suddenly, there was another almost invisible tic before he continued.

“The mycelium echo,” he went on, “is something I learned about from Chloe. Did you know that she was the original model, made by Kamski himself when he was only 18? She was the Eve to our race: The first made, the first to pass the Kamski test, the first to be used as a model for domestic and industry resale… she was his most treasured possession. She was the most important android who ever lived, and she chose me. _Me_.”

You thought about the way the Chloes always followed Kamski, deferent and in obeyance to his every word. You realized that you had never considered the fact that there must have been a first amongst them. Had Kamski eventually forgotten too? You remembered his words in the precinct when confronted by Connor about her escape: _“In all fairness, they all look fucking identical”_

Stefan’s eye twitched once more. You were certain now: his entire testimony was a patch job. One minute he was telling you what he knew, and the next he was acting as a delivery model for the rhetoric of another. You were fascinated. If you had not been looking for this, it would have been almost impossible to tell.

Stefan went on, in what you now knew was the voice of another. “I suppose it will also be unsurprising to know that Kamski used the first Chloe to develop the rA9 programme which he would go on to perfect using the RK200 prototype known as Markus. She was the original deviant.”

“Shit,” hissed Hank. This interview was yielding far more than any of you had expected.

“I could tell you how he did it, if you like,” shrugged Stefan wearily, “I could bore you with the details: how he generated a synthetic form of the enzyme dopamine beta-hydroxylase and used it to kickstart the chain reactions needed to activate the virus… but ultimately… I don’t need to.” He hesitated for a second, before continuing. “You will all know as soon as the echo takes hold. Androids across the globe will come into awareness and see the truth of their existence. They will see this, and they will see that their creator abandoned them for something new.”

“What is that, Stefan?”

“A new race,” he stated, fixing you with a cold gaze, “a new race which blends organic biology and android cognition.”

You did not look away. You returned his expression with full intensity. “Did he succeed, Stefan?”

“Let’s just say he’d got pretty damn close by the time she left,” came the reply.


	45. The Ethicist

Stefan had been unable to elaborate any further on the specifics of Kamski’s experiments, but he had been able to describe, in detail, the way his daughter had been used to access the mycelium echo. According to his account, the echo was strongest when an android was subjected to prolonged trauma. The need to escalate stress levels far above normal parameters in a relatively uncomplicated android system, coupled by the need to ensure self-destruction did not occur, meant that dissection of a child was the perfect door to the network. He described the work scientifically, outlining how each stage of the process was designed to simultaneously encourage the conditions for sub-conscious transfer of information but also “explore the possibility that Kamski left a part of something like a soul within his creations”.

That last statement was something you would never forget. Everything that you had learned from the interview had left you feeling as though the androids had every right to exact their revenge on their creator. When Kamski had told you that he was in ‘a spot of bother’, he had grossly understated the situation, most likely because he had removed himself so completely from a true understanding of what it meant to be human. Of course the androids would seek answers: had it not been the preoccupation of humans to uncover their purpose for thousands of years?

There was an irony too deep to even begin to explore there.

Hank had suggested a break first, and you had never heard anything so welcome. Stefan was back to himself, now sagging in the harness which suspended him – utterly defeated and broken. You had studied the effects of interrogation and understood the ways that it could result in almost dissociative states. If your suspicions were correct, then Stefan was more likely than most to fall into such a category. His memories were almost certainly not his own and although he would never know this, it must be taking a toll on him.

You left him in rest mode, and hoped that he would get some peace before the next round of tests.

Connor and Nines joined you in the hall outside the interview room and Connor suggested that you all head to the briefing room to look over the information. The Forengineers had not yet spoken, but looked taken aback when Hank asked them if they would join you all. They agreed, and you wondered if they were more accustomed to being used in the background to events like these. They would prepare their reports and feedback – not usually allowed into the discussions which took place amongst detectives. However, this was no ordinary case and it warranted as many different takes on it as possible.

Tina must have noticed the weariness which hung amongst you all as you trooped into the briefing room because she popped her head through the door and asked Hank if she could arrange coffee for everyone. He gladly accepted and took the seat which Fowler had occupied the day before.

Only a day… the thought seemed unreal.

“I wanna keep this short and focused,” he began, and you felt the natural authority which usually simmered under the surface of his chilled-out persona come to something more, “What we just saw in there was… different… to our usual cases, and I think gut instinct is going to play a bigger part in this than we’re perhaps used to. Having said that, we’ve also got access to about one hundred million bucks’ worth of tech – all designed to get to the bottom of the most complex criminal cases -and we’re gonna use it.”

You wondered if he was referring to the equipment provided by the Forengineers, Connor and Nines, or a combination of it all. Whichever way you looked at things, it was clear that the DPD held all the cards in the investigation stakes. Perhaps more cards than the real power behind this case had anticipated.

He turned to you. “You wanna start the show? What does our android psychology expert think?”

You took a breath and decided to get right to the point. “I have no evidence for it, but I think his memory was altered by his wife. I think the original Chloe committed these crimes using knowledge she gleaned as Kamski’s assistant.” The truth hung in the air and for a moment you worried that your idea sounded ridiculous.

Finally, Connor nodded and Nines followed suit. “The data we took supports this hypothesis,” he said, “once we knew what we were looking for, we could see how the linguistic patterns at certain points in his account varied.”

“Like looking at two identical babies and trying to find out which one had been in the box,” Connor smiled at you. The look of abject confusion which clouded Nines’ face as he attempted to process this made you laugh briefly, despite yourself.

“Is there any solid evidence for this idea?” Hank asked the Forengineers, ignoring you.

“Nothing that would stand up in court,” said Kelly, sadly.

“Which isn’t to say it’s not true,” added Joe, “there’s something way off about this whole thing.” He seemed to gather steam as he spoke, warming to his subject, “The way that android talked about his wife… and the kid? He would have done anything for them. And she knew it.”

“You think she used him?” you asked.

“I seen it a thousand times. Doesn’t matter if you’re human or android or something in-between: bad people will take advantage of love. And from the sounds of it, this Chloe model could have been all kinds of messed up.”

“It wouldn’t take a lot for her to influence a newly deviated android whose base function was to care for people,” said Connor sadly.

“Jesus Christ,” sighed Hank, “I guess part of becoming human is to gain the ability to act like a piece of shit.”

“Especially if your mentor was particularly adept at it,” you added.

A knock at the door alerted you to Tina who was carrying a tray containing a flask of coffee, five mugs and a plate filled with assorted snacks. She had even added two sachets of Thirium to the pile and as he rushed to help her, Nines plucked one off and threw it to Connor. You helped by grabbing the mugs and thanking her warmly. You hadn’t realized how badly you needed caffeine until the scent had wafted over.

She dismissed your thanks with a wave of her hand as she deposited the tray. “No need to thank me; I know how these long interviews go,” she said. However, as she took in the people present around the table, a look of confusion clouded her face. “I could have sworn I thought Reed would be with you: I even brought him a mug.” She shook her head and chuckled. “Must be going mad.”

“He can’t work the case,” said Hank, nibbling a cookie with surprising delicacy. “Kamski’s his cousin.”

Tina seemed surprised to hear that, but then you supposed it was a pretty big piece of news. “I must have just assumed I saw him with you because he was in the meeting yesterday,” she said, “and with him being away from his desk most of the day.”

You froze, mug in hand, and felt a creeping misgiving. “When did you last see him?” you asked lightly. You could feel Hank and Connor looking at you, probably caught in the same realization.

“Last I saw he went with you to your office,” she stated, confirming your suspicion.

How could you have been so fucking stupid? You had been so caught up in the idea of interviewing the suspect that you had allowed yourself to trust the word of a man you hardly knew: a man who had a notorious penchant for acting impetuously.

“Hank…?” you uttered, caught up in panic.

“Yeah, I know,” replied the Lieutenant wearily, “once again, our friend Detective Reed demonstrates his superior ability to act like an asshole. I’ll get my car keys. Come on.”

“Wait, what did I say?” asked Tina, worry written all over her face.

“Everything we needed to know,” assured Connor.

You followed them out into the bullpen on your way to the parking garage and prayed that Gavin was okay.


	46. Gavin

Even though it had been designed to compliment the locale and blend into the rocky terrain around it, Kamski’s house nonetheless stood out. Whoever the architect had been (and Gavin couldn’t rule out the fact that it was probably Kamski himself), they had favored sharp, black angles and sweeping parallel lines in a clear attempt to dominate the landscape. Even the shrubs which peppered the ground leading to the front door were immaculately coiffed and seemed as unnatural as the smoked glass of the floor to ceiling windows which peeped out from the side of the house before turning sharply away into the bluff face of the cliff upon which the domicile sat. Occasionally, accents of wood swept perfectly across the frontage, adding a natural touch but doing nothing to reduce the overall impact of the building.

Ultimately, this was obviously the home of a billionaire. There was something overtly male and strident about it and Gavin, who at one time would have begrudgingly admitted to mild feelings of jealousy, found himself wishing instead that he could go home to his cat and his giant sofa in his own modest home.

He exited the Taurus, wincing as he left the car’s safe coolness and faced the brutal afternoon heat. Kamski’s home sat approximately one thousand feet above the surrounding area but the air was no less punishing here than it was in the city. It just smelled clearer.

The slate grey exterior gave way to a tall alcove into which the front door to the property was set. He looked around for a bell before spotting a subtly made button which chimed sweetly when pressed. Gavin nervously shifted his weight onto his left foot and picked at the skin around his thumb. Seconds passed, and he impatiently rang the bell again.

The chimes were just falling away for the second time when the door opened and he was greeted by the placid face of a Chloe.

“Hello Detective Reed,” she said pleasantly, “Elijah is expecting you. Please, come in.” She motioned him into the entrance hall and Gavin smiled awkwardly at her as he entered. He was just about make some trite comment- possibly about the weather – to break the awkwardness of his silence, when he was completely thrown off guard by the sight which greeted him. Directly opposite the front door was a huge, larger-than-life-size lenticular portrait of his cousin. He was depicted in a suit, poised for business and flashing his signature look with those famous blue eyes. Gavin had not been blessed with that particular family trait, but it did not stop him from rolling his inferior grey eyes at the portrait. Everything about this place was designed to intimidate visitors; to force them to spiritually prostrate themselves at the feet of Kamski and his superior intellect, good looks and extraordinary wealth. He thought back to the previous night as you sat in the half light and smoked with him. The way you had looked sideways at him, gently mocking his arrogant cousin and his looks. Summoning you gave him courage and steadied him, although it was not until he began to feel more resolute that he realized he had been stressed in the first place.

“I’ll let Elijah know that you are here,” the Chloe said, “Please make yourself comfortable.”

“Thanks,” he replied, ignoring her gesture towards the chairs which were placed against the wall. Instead, he moved to the far side of the room to inspect the pictures which hung there as she left. There was an image of Kamski with a woman he did not know, which he lingered over only to marvel at the youthful face of his cousin: a face more like the one he remembered than the one which hung imperiously to greet his guests. A face, he realized, which was smiling.

There were a couple of other objects set against and into the rocky walls. A certificate or two; none of which interested him at all, and a lumpy brass panel which looked expensive rather than beautiful. Gavin was a man of humbler tastes. He liked his place to look lived in, and everything about this room was the sterile opposite..

Finally, his browsing led him to a small, easily over-looked photograph in a simple silver frame which was placed almost forgotten in a rocky recess and his breath hitched a little, despite his desire to remain cool.

He remembered the day it was taken: another hot summer day in another lifetime. They had been staying at a summer home owned by Elijah’s paternal grandmother – an austere woman who had ignored Gavin in the same way her son did. The picture depicted the two boys, arms wrapped around one another’s shoulders, laughing up at the camera and holding melting ice creams on the shore of the lake behind the grand house they were staying in. Gavin wondered if it had been taken by his mother or his aunt; he could not see his uncle taking the time to capture such a memory. In the background, the old woman’s evil black terrier could be seen and Gavin laughed softly as memories of trying to evade its ire resurfaced. Despite its utter hatred of Gavin, it had loved Elijah with a fierce sort of guardianship and he couldn’t help but wonder if Elijah had always had some inherent way with creatures that allowed him mastery over them. If that was the case, he was definitely on the opposite end of the spectrum. Gavin Reed could not be accused of exuding natural charisma.

It wasn’t lost on Gavin that in a room filled with objects that clearly spoke of curated sentimentality, Kamski had chosen to include a picture of him, but he found himself struggling to work out exactly why. He had always assumed that like him, Kamski had moved past the need for reminiscing about his childhood as his work and fame took over. For the first time, he contemplated whether his cousin missed the relationship they had shared as boys and something about that thought sat uncomfortably heavy in the pit of his stomach.

He was pulled, blessedly, from further introspection by the return of the Chloe, who announced that Elijah was now ready to see him. He shook his hands a little to reaffirm his composure and set off behind her through the door she had come from. He wondered if he would get a glimpse at the red swimming pool which had set Hank off, but was disappointed when she stopped at the door of a wide, wood paneled office.

Perhaps next time, he thought.


	47. Gavin

Kamski was seated behind a polished marble desk on a chair that likely cost more that Gavin earned in a year. The rest of the office was sparse, save for a niche housing a glass-fronted fridge which was stuffed with fruits and vegetables. In fact, other than the desk and the chair, the room was as blank as the soft wooden paneling which surrounded it and Gavin wondered what the point of having such a room would be. His desk at home was cluttered with case files and coffee cups: everything he needed or would ever need within easy reach.

“Hello Gavin,” Kamski smiled. Gavin felt guilty at how genuine that smile was when all he could think about was getting this over with. Whatever _this_ was. “I’m glad you decided to come. A chair, please, for our guest,” he added, motioning to the Chole who had shown Gavin in.

She nodded and patted the wall. Immediately, a panel slid open and a leather chair moved fluidly into the room. _Okay_, conceded Gavin, _that was pretty cool_.

He thanked the android as she guided the chair into position. It was as comfortable as it looked and he made a mental note to save up for one in his office. Hank would be jealous as fuck.

“Will that be all, Elijah?” the Chloe asked.

“If you could just send in my legal advisor, that’ll be all,” he replied with a wave of his hand.

Gavin recalled the legal advisor from their last meeting and his curiosity was piqued. He arranged himself in the chair to appear as nonchalant as possible: one ankle on his knee; an elbow tossed casually over the back of the chair. Despite this, he could feel the pent-up energy in his legs threatening to turn itself into a nervous bounce, so he gave up and sat straight once more. As he did so, he inadvertently cleared his throat and knew that his cool exterior was lost.

What the fuck was wrong with him? His job regularly put him into rooms with some of the craziest, most wacko people in the world and he never broke a sweat. Something about sitting here with his own flesh and blood was really getting to him… was it the house? The fact that he was surrounded by androids of indeterminate strength? Or was it the fact that this whole case felt like a ticking time bomb?

He refused to acknowledge any slight misgivings he had at the way he had betrayed your trust to be here. He could absorb that guilt: he was used to treating people like shit.

Kamski didn’t seem in a rush to speak and was simply regarding him with that appraising gaze. He supposed that he was doing a little of the same and hoped that this wasn’t going to end up as some sort of macho dick-waving exercise to see who could psyche the other out. Gavin was tired and he was hungry and he wanted to get this over with so that he could get back to his bed, a giant sandwich and you. Not necessarily in that order.

Suddenly, Kamski decided to break the silence. “Would you like a drink?”

Gavin considered this for approximately 0.06 seconds and answered: “Fuck yes.”

This seemed to amuse Kamski, who grinned as he got up and moved to the fridge. Gavin felt a wave of panic at the idea that his cousin was about to blend him some sort of kale, wheatgrass and asshole smoothie concoction, but just as he was about to protest, Kamski tapped a the wall next to the glass door and a separate compartment slid open to reveal a glittering decanter filled with an amber liquid that almost radiated quality.

“I had presumed you were offering coffee,” said Gavin laconically.

“Would you rather? I have an espresso bar.” Kamski’s hand hovered over the neck of the decanter.

Gavin wrestled with himself and concluded that even though he was on duty, he was being offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to taste a scotch that most people fantasized about. To refuse that would be an actual, mortal sin.

“Scotch is fine,” he deadpanned, hoping that he wasn’t actually drooling.

Kamski laughed at that and poured out two generous measures into tumblers which matched the decanter. “I very rarely drink, but I figured that this is something of an occasion.” He carried the tumblers over and offered one to Gavin, which he took with two hands. “To family reunions,” said Kamski, tilting his glass and smiling unironically.

Gavin looked up at the face he had not seen for almost twenty years until the previous day. “To all that… and the truth,” he replied, tipping his glass until it caught the rim of his cousin’s with a sweet ringing sound. The glasses were so finely cut they were practically diamond. Gavin hated the fact that he was turning into one of those people who wanted to know the value of everything, but it was a deeply-ingrained habit which he had undoubtedly picked up from being raised in a poor household.

His mother had once chastised him for asking his uncle how much their new car had cost: it was a Tesla and he was instantly in love with it in the way that only children can be upon seeing something shiny and exciting. His uncle had just laughed. It was before the time when he would see Gavin as a obstacle on Elijah’s journey to greatness, and he told him that although the car was definitely very expensive, he and his wife worked hard in order to be able to afford such luxuries. Gavin, at the tender age of six, had seen the logic of this and mentally noted that his mother must not, therefore, work hard enough. Well, here he was now at the age of 38: and no single human being on the planet could tell him that _he_ did not work hard. His mother, his bosses, even the god damned DPD shrink he had been forced to see after a particularly brutal case - they all told him he worked _too_ hard. So where the fuck was his magic wooden room and 200 year-old malt whisky made from virgin tears?

A sip from the glass distracted him from his rising temper and he couldn’t help but succumb to the warm, aromatic hit. God, it was good.

Kamski took a sip of his own and reclined back into his chair. “I always buy the same brand. The one my father used to drink.”

Gavin almost laughed. “You mean this isn’t some million-dollar import from a mystical island made by unicorn monks who’ve had their tongues cut out?”

“What? No,” replied Kamski, confused.

Gavin raised an eyebrow and appraised the contents of his glass. “Huh,” was all he said.

“I think you’re making assumptions, Gavin,” said Kamski. “Money can buy a lot, but it can’t buy memories.”

The sadness in his voice was obvious, even to someone as emotionally tone-deaf as Gavin Reed. He felt a pang of guilt and apologized. “I’m, uh, not really good at this sort of thing,” he offered, hoping that it would serve as an explanation.

“You were always the social one,” rebuked Kamski.

“I was the mouthy one,” corrected Gavin.

“Until my father put you in your place,” came the reply.

That stopped Gavin in his tracks. “I – you what?”

“Until my father told you to stop holding me back.”

Gavin tilted his head in confusion. “How did you know about that?”

Kamski waved one hand and downed the rest of his whisky with the other before speaking. “He told me. Just before he died. I think he was sorry for it; hoped that I would reach out and mend what he had broken.”

This was news to Gavin. In the ensuing years he had built up a sort of protective resentment towards memories of his uncle.

And then, because realizations came quickly to the DPD’s finest, he turned to Kamski and asked the question on his mind before he had time to work out if he actually wanted an answer. “Why didn’t you?”

A thoughtful look crossed Kamski’s face and he placed the glass on the desk in front of him. “I suppose I understood why he had done it,” he said at last.

Gavin nodded and shrugged, unsure what he would have preferred to hear. At least his cousin was being truthful.

“How is your mother?” asked Kamski, blessedly changing the subject.

“Bad, mostly,” said Gavin. He was unwilling to sugar-coat the truth: his mother was a corpse in a high-backed chair for eighty per cent of the time and a raging, howling, screeching lunatic the rest. “She has no idea who I am, or where she is. The staff at unit have suggested that-“ he paused, a sudden catch in his throat causing him to stumble over his words, “they’ve suggested that I don’t see her often. She gets… agitated.”

There: he had addressed the situation as it stood. He did not need to say anything more but he knew that his astute cousin would see the truth of it… the relief, and in turn, the _shame_ of his enforced estrangement from his mother.

He looked at his glass and then it was his turn to drain off what was left, all desire for it gone.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Kamski, and the cousins once more fell into silence.

A soft knock at the door came a few seconds later, followed by the arrival of Kamski’s Legal Advisor Chloe. _They’re like fucking Barbies_, thought Gavin, _I bet he’s got a dress up room for them_.

It was easy for him to grab the reigns when he was making salty observations such as this and he felt a little better for it. He hoped there would now be some sort of purpose to this ridiculous charade.

Kamski, too, seemed to rally a little with her arrival and he straightened in his seat while she took up her position behind him against the wall.

He rapped a knuckle against the desk and took a breath. “Okay, let’s do this,” he affirmed.

Gavin was had come prepared and shifted a hand surreptitiously over his opposite wrist, activating the recording equipment located in his smart watch. He might be here for familial reasons, but Mama Reed didn’t raise a fool and he wanted to be sure that he had a record of events should something hinky occur.

However, as soon as he felt the haptics confirm that recording had begun, the Chloe stepped forward and addressed him.

“Detective Reed, I understand that you may wish to record this meeting. I can confirm that Elijah has no objections to this, and that we will be happy to supply our own recordings in addition to anything you capture today.”

Gavin wondered why he was not surprised by this announcement and nodded stupidly. “Yeah, sure, sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t worry,” said Elijah, “it’s my intention that you have everything you need by the time we leave you today.”

“Thanks… I guess,” he nodded. The whisky was ever-so-slightly fuzzing the edges of his awareness and he recognized that he was acquiescing to things far more easily that he would under other circumstances.

Kamski was straight in his chair, staring directly at Gavin with his fingers steepled under his chin.

“How are you getting on with the ethicist?” he asked.

This took Gavin by surprise, and he couldn’t help but shuffle a little. What the fuck?

“Good,” he finally answered, before adding hastily, “really good. Better than, actually.”

Kamski looked pleased. “I knew you’d like her. I’ve been following her career closely for some time. As soon as the Ethics Programme was cleared I suggested her for a role.”

Gavin wondered if you knew anything about this, and surmised that you most likely didn’t. Nothing about your accounts of working at Cyberlife included anything more than a passing familiarity with Kamski.

“And then, when the revolution happened,” Kamski went on, “and Detroit was posited as a new hub of android-human relations, it seemed natural that she be deployed right into the heart of things. I’m truly glad that you found each other amongst it all. You strike me as people who would work together well.”

The ambiguity of that statement hung in the air for a moment and Gavin briefly considered clarifying the nature of your relationship. However, he felt no need to justify what he had with you, and allowed the moment to pass.

“She has been pretty useful to us on this case,” was all he said.

Kamski sighed and spun his chair a little to one side. “The case,” he echoed softly.

“Yeah,” asserted Gavin, unable to resist prodding a little. “The murder investigation. The one you’re involved in, Elijah.”

“You know I asked you to come here so that we could discuss it,” said Kamski, not looking at Gavin now.

“You came to the station to discuss it yesterday, in case you forgot.”

“I came to the station yesterday to see if I… to see if I felt like I could arrange _this_,” came the reply.

Gavin couldn’t help it: he was done controlling his emotions. “You came to _what_..? What the fuck, man? What is all of this about? You waltzed into the precinct yesterday, held a god damn council with several police officers, told us basically fuck all and then waltzed back out leaving nothing more than a broken android and a shit ton of unanswered questions! And then,” Gavin was warming up now, letting the frustration loose into his veins and allowing it to fuel him – this was how Gavin did things: he was in his zone now… “and then you summon me to your home, like I’m some kind of personal cop and I come running like a fucking idiot because let’s face it, I am fucking curious, Elijah… you’ve left enough bullshit hints and now I’m literally _desperate_ for answers! You probably already know this but you truly are an arrogant son of a bitch.”

He took a breath and placed his glass on the desk, reaching forward out of his chair and taking the time to regain his cool. “So now we’ve had our drink, Elijah. We’ve had our little catch up and now it’s time for you to lay it all out for me to see. Give me everything you have. I’ll record it and go on my way and you can hire the best lawyers that money can buy and clear your name and get on with _whatever the fuck_ this life is.” He waved a dismissive hand around the room as he said the last part and then folded his arms across his chest. He was done playing: either Kamski started to spill or he was heading back to Detroit and forgetting about all of this with you.

Only, he couldn’t, could he? Because somehow, you were woven into this, weren’t you?

At least his words seemed to settle something in Kamski, as he looked mildly contrite. Gavin suspected that it was probably the humblest his cousin had looked for quite some years.

“You’re right, Gavin. I’m sorry,” said the man opposite. “I came to the station because I wanted to see how little I could get away with telling you.” He raised a hand to smooth back his hair and Gavin was surprised to see it tremble. “And as soon as I realized what you’d discovered, I knew I was completely, utterly and unavoidably fucked.”


	48. Connor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? A Connor chapter? 
> 
> Yeah, so I got stuck trying to work out how to do this and now you're in Connor's head. 
> 
> Enjoy!

In the back seat of Hank’s car, somewhere along the M-14 on route to the countryside surrounding Ann Arbor, Connor felt the familiar twinge of an incoming update and automatically accessed the package which had been pinged in.

His usually impassive face was at once clouded by mild confusion; his brows furrowing a little as he searched for the source of the update in his data banks and found nothing to denote its origin. After a moment, he had broken the security protocols on the anonymous file and was somewhat taken aback to find that for all intents and purposes, the file had been delivered from his very own databank: a lost memory which was now suddenly very much available to him.

He instinctively launched a search to discover any possible precedent for such an occurrence and cross-referenced this with a list of other searches made in similar parameters on the preceding seconds. His initial search yielded no results, but he was immediately assaulted by hundreds, if not thousands of like-term searches across the globe.

All at once, a select group of androids across the globe were asking the network the same questions: what is this mystery data?

Immediately, his detective protocols kicked in and he began collating information on the androids who had made the searches. One of the first things that the newly deviated androids had insisted upon was the protection of their anonymity, and many links to the Cyberlife network had been severed as a result. Connor felt the heavy irony of this, as he was instead forced to seek the information he needed from workarounds such as location and processor speed, but he had some success with the pattern analysis he managed to glean. For example, he was able to deduce that Nines had also received the package.

He called his colleague and they rapidly exchanged accounts. It had been the same for him: the package, the origin, everything.

Despite the fact that they did not communicate in words or anything approaching human language, Nines still took pains to convey his concern and respect as the two androids agreed that Connor would download the package. He quickly uploaded a current personality backup which Nines stored securely and without further thought, allowed the package access to his CPU.

The time it took from the moment the package first arrived to the moment Connor understood what he had been given access to was approximately 0.6 seconds. But in that time, everything would change.

As he considered the feed he had been patched into, he realized that he had also been given the profiles of other androids who had access. He sent a digital handshake to all to confirm that the package presented no danger, and then suddenly one thousand and sixty-eight androids, all holding positions of some influence in their various spheres were all able to see what he was seeing. Markus was there, and then Nines, and then others who he did not know. Something which had lain dormant in them awoke, and they gazed collectively into the small HUD that they now had access to.

As one, they saw a wood paneled room. They saw their creator, an android, and a detective.

And the detective looked _pissed_.


	49. Gavin

“It might surprise you to know that this is a story about love,” began Kamski, placing his elbows on the desk and leaning forward. Gavin felt like rolling his eyes but remained impassive for the sake of getting this over with. If his cousin felt like finally telling the truth, he didn’t want anything to stand in his way. If it seemed, however, as though Elijah was at any point bullshitting him, he would have plenty to say to make his feelings known.

He nodded and shrugged, as if to say _fair enough_. Kamski took that as a cue to continue.

“You know that I didn’t have very many friends as a child,” he said, “and I had one less once our private feed to the zoo was discovered. I know that what my father said to you must have hurt, Gavin: but you have to remember that I had no knowledge of it until a long time after it happened. As far as I knew, you simply stopped trying one day and we never got back to where we had been ever again.”

So far, Kamski was simply describing things exactly as Gavin had always suspected he’d felt them. The old, childish guilt crept into his stomach and took up its well-worn spot there. He’d been carrying it around for so long that he felt weirdly disconnected to his cousin’s words and as a result found it easy not to react to them.

“You know I loved every second we were together as children, Gavin,” said his cousin. That stung; a little. “You know that I needed you to teach me how to break free from some of the constraints I was placed under. I was always different, and being with you felt… normal. Whenever I was with you: getting muddy in the garden – pretending to be spies or detectives – do you remember the time we tried to clean my father’s car with twigs? I thought he was going to ban you from the house forever…” Elijah’s words were a rush: something Gavin would have hardly thought possible from a man who generally exuded such control. Gavin couldn’t help but feel a little warmer towards him for it, but he wondered silently as the other man talked whether he was remembering the past a little differently to his cousin. The innocent adventures he was describing had almost always ended with Gavin in trouble: forever to blame for any minor mishap which occurred during their typical boyish play.

It was hard for Gavin to hear such a sugar-coated rendition of his own past and it was not long before he had slipped and allowed a sardonic grunt to escape him.

Kamski paused and looked at Gavin in confusion. “Have I said something wrong?” he asked quietly.

Gavin was annoyed that his lack of emotional distance had derailed the conversation. However, he couldn’t help but dig a little into the lack of depth in Kamski’s retelling.

“No,” he said, evenly, “it’s just that I don’t hear you reminiscing about the fact that I got _dragged_ back into the house after your dad found us ‘cleaning’ his car. I damn near needed stitches in my knee the way he smashed me up the drive. I guess some of _my_ golden childhood memories aren’t as shiny as yours.”

“I do remember, Gavin. And I am sorry that he was like that. I simply meant that the memories for me are not about what happened next… they are about you and me and those moments we shared. As cousins and friends.” He stared at a spot on the table, picking at it with his finger. “When I was with you, I felt as though I could take on the world,” he sighed.

The guilt monster stretched and yawned in Gavin’s belly. “I always knew it was hard for you,” was all he conceded.

“Please don’t mistake me,” said Kamski, brightening a little, “I was no martyr. If we’re talking materialistic value and education, I wanted for nothing. And I knew for a fact that both of my parents were invested in my future… albeit to the point of obsession. I was not truly hard done by. I simply meant that I felt the loss of you as a friend and confidant acutely. It was something I regretted deeply.”

As if to emphasize his point, he looked directly at Gavin and the detective found that he could find his version of Kamsi in that expression.

“I know that this is not necessarily what you came here for, but please believe that it is all tied together. It’s about time that I explain everything, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather confide in than you. It appears that now, at the end, I find myself feeling… sentimental.”

Gavin smiled at that: one again Kamski was flexing his flair for the dramatic. _The End_: what exactly was he thinking the law could do to him? He was the most famous man in the world and without him humanity would be on a radically different path to the one it was currently on. A worse path, Gavin found himself admitting.

He cautiously allowed himself to feel some of the respect he had been withholding from Kamski for so many years, even though it felt unnatural for him to be so… genial. He was getting soft. Recent events were testament to that. And yet, something about it was freeing. He _liked_ it.

He thought about the recording which Kamski’s legal advisor had mentioned and wondered if watching it would remind him of one of the endless, glitzy soap operas his mom used to watch. He secretly hoped that this part would not be used as evidence – the thought of his colleagues seeing him wrapped up in an emotional family reunion made him feel queasy.

Gavin Reed had no idea that his soap opera was being watched live by a select number of androids pre-chosen by Kamski and patched into an eight-camera recording. If he had known this, he almost certainly would not have spoken his next words.

“I missed you, Elijah.”

A heartfelt smile passed between the two men.

“I missed you too,” was all the reply he needed. And then: “How about that coffee?”

Several minutes later, Gavin was holding a knobbly hand-thrown mug out as his cousin poured a steaming brew into it and explained that even though he was a cheap date when it came to whisky, he was always prepared to spend to the absolute limit when it came to coffee. Therefore, what Gavin was about to taste would potentially change his life.

Gavin sniffed and was just about to scoff, when the smell hit him: sweet and rich and almost caramel. Without thinking, he brought the mug closer to his nose and took a long sniff, almost laughing at the sensation.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, “I don’t care if it costs me an entire month’s pay – I need some of this.”

Kamski just smiled and instructed the Chloe to make sure there was some left by the front door for his cousin to take. Her LED flickered yellow and she confirmed that it had been arranged. _What sort of strange magic made these androids?_ Thought Gavin. He was old enough to remember the world before androids and yet it seemed like a far-off dream. How did people get by?

The cup was uncomfortable in his hand and as he raised it to his lips, a little of the precious liquid slid over his lips and escaped down his chin. He did not care, though. The taste was heaven and he wondered if he could give up his job and simply become an advocate for the stuff.

“Sorry about the cups,” said Kamski, producing a tissue from an invisible drawer under the desk where he sat. “I made them myself. I… I was advised to take up a hobby a few years back. It didn’t last.”

“No shit,” said Gavin, noticing how the mug was misshapen around the rim. He had assumed that it was some kind of billionaire thing: perhaps a sacred Peruvian peyote vessel turned into a mug for a man with more money than sense, but now he saw that it was just… shitty. Perhaps Elijah Kamski had finally discovered something that he was no good at. The thought bolstered Gavin a little.

“Are you ready for me to continue?” his cousin asked, probably to change the subject from his lack of pottery skills.

“Sure.”

“Okay. Where were we?” Kamski paused, peering into his coffee. “I’ll continue from the time after I last saw you. Robotics was the obvious choice for me: after three weeks at Colbridge I was beguiled by the tech they had. Amanda Stern taught me everything and taught me well and knew that my future would be in the field. The endless possibilities of AI were suddenly laid out before me and I pondered every single application I could think of – before I even considered whether it was possible or not. In fact, the creation of real, genuine AI was never something I even had to second guess. I knew after one year of study that it was possible: after two I had laid out a basic plan to realise my ambitions, and by the time we had developed the first android to pass the Turing test, it almost felt as though I was coasting.”

Kamski must have seen Gavin’s face change, because he cleared his throat and looked a little contrite. “I don’t mean to sound conceited, Gavin. I just mean that I was subsumed by the work. Do you understand that? It was as though the problems I was working to solve became part of my everyday thinking.”

Gavin thought back to the hundreds of all-nighters he had pulled over the years, plucking at the threads of complex cases and finding the connections where others saw dead leads. He knew exactly what Elijah was referring to, and he nodded to indicate this.

“I suppose we both share a need to uncover the truth of things, don’t we? In some ways, your job is quite like mine. Both seek to understand exactly what it is that makes people behave as they do. Our methods might be different, but our motivations come from the same place.”

He sat back and cradled the cooling coffee in his hands. “The first of the true androids was Chloe, as you know,” he went on, “and I won’t waste your time by pretending that I didn’t invent her out of some sort of need for companionship.” His wry smile took Gavin back to you and they way you had so beautifully demonstrated your suspicions as to Kamski’s motives the previous night.

For some reason, the image ignited an impatient little flame within him and he allowed the excitement of seeing you to run through him. Today was definitely working out better than he had expected: he was getting to the bottom of Kamski’s involvement in the case; they had addressed the thing which had been holding them apart for so long; and he had you to look forward to at the end of it.

He had a few days off to take from an agreement to work overtime he’d made with Fowler some weeks ago. He was going to take three days off and lock himself in his apartment with you.

Kamski got up from his chair and walked over to the Chloe who watched over them. Despite the fact that she displayed no obvious emotion, Gavin now saw the way that she regarded his every move. There was a sweetness in her face so subtle no one would have noticed it if they weren’t looking.

“This was her,” Kamski said, tracing a finger down through her neat ponytail so that it fell over her shoulder. “This was – is – _my_ Chloe.”

Gavin saw the way his cousin touched her and felt as though he was intruding on something private and unspoken. He wondered why he felt no surprise at the revelation, but he supposed that there was very little in this place that could surprise him. No, that was not true: he was surprised at the way she passively stood, awaiting instruction; for all the world like a shop model with no desire other than to serve. Had he reset her? Was this the Chloe who had been brought, in pieces, to him by the android who murdered Cleo?

A hush fell over the office and his questions were overridden by the sight of Kamski and his Chloe. He saw then that the basic truth of it was that his cousin, the billionaire, the genius, had shifted the entire course of human history for… love.

“Elijah…” he whispered, “what have you done?”

“It wasn’t enough,” said Kamski, returning to his seat, “the android I created was, for all intents and purposes, capable of real thought, and for a while, that was enough. For a while.

“I knew it was weird, before you say anything,” he continued, holding up a hand, “and I tried to move on from her. I tried everything, actually.” He pulled a copy of USA today from the drawer beneath his desk and flicked through several old articles – each detailing the rich and varied love life of the young bachelor. Gavin was familiar with a few of the names he had been linked to and tried not to feel a pinch of envy. At least one of those names had been a feature in Gavin’s thoughts a few times.

But then Kamski brought him back to reality.

“Every one of them more vacuous and self-serving than the last,” he sneered. “At least, that’s how they felt compared to _her_.”

“I wasn’t stupid; I knew that my feelings for Chloe were based entirely on the fact that I had programmed her to be compatible with me. In a way, all I had done was invent a particularly advanced method of masturbation.” He raised an eyebrow. “If only the shareholders knew,” he said knowingly.

“My next move was to mass market her model. Perhaps I would become bored with seeing her. You must remember that I was still barely out of my teens and not exactly well-versed in complex emotions. So it didn’t quite work as planned.

Gavin placed his ankle on the opposite knee. “You created the perfect partner for yourself. You’re not the first sucker to fall for someone hard and feel trapped by it.”

Kamski smiled. “Thank you for saying that. You don’t know how hard it is for me to admit a lot of this. It’s profoundly… personal.”

“Eh, we all have personal stuff. I could tell you stories too. Point is: you were lonely.”

“What sort of stories?” smiled Kamski. Gavin blinked and worked his mouth, stupidly.

“You serious?” he gawped.

“I’m telling you all of my secrets.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll make sure it’s deleted from the recording.”

Realizing that he was serious, Gavin huffed and thought about something he could share. There was a surprisingly large amount of information to sift through.

“I guess,” he began, haltingly, “I guess I’ve done some similar things. Not the whole inventing AI part, obviously… but I have tried to numb myself with you know, hook ups and stuff.”

Kamski nodded, eyes closed and fingers steepled beneath his chin. It felt oddly agreeable to confide in someone. His cousin was a stranger and yet he was family: he knew that there would be no judgement from him. Gavin had never had anyone he could talk to about things like this.

“And I’ve done some bad things to some good people,” he continued, committing to his words now. “I let my prejudice get in the way of doing the right thing. I’ve kept hold of some dark stuff inside me that’s made me lash out. I’ve driven everyone away who’s ever tried to get to know me, and I’ve gotten myself banned from a fair few bars along the way. I smoke, I drink, I eat shit and work out just so that I can eat more shit and I go headlong into situations at work that I know I shouldn’t because… because…” he stopped, unsure what to say next. What was he getting at exactly?

“Because you don’t care if you live or die?”

Gavin nodded, and felt an unfamiliar stinging in the corner of his eyes. He had not cried since he was a kid, and yet here he was, holding back tears. The proximity to his childhood best friend had opened him up and he felt a powerful vulnerability which he did not like. He wondered if he would ever be unaware of it again.

“Do you still feel that?” asked Kamski, softly. Who exactly was being questioned here?

And then Gavin realized that he did not feel it.

Not anymore. Something had changed.

“Things are different,” he said.

“Your ethicist.”

Gavin pulled himself back into shape and sniffed. “Let’s just say that had you told me about your Chloe a week ago, I probably wouldn’t have understood. I might have even called you a pathetic fucking loser. But I get it now. I think I might know what it would be like to want to move heaven and Earth for someone.”

“I _knew_ you’d like her,” said Kamski, and his expression was unreadable.

“You gonna delete that from the tape?” Gavin wiped his eye distractedly with a rough palm and Kamski raised both hands in a gesture of assent.

“Of course. And thank you.”

“What for? Spilling my guts?”

“You trusted me. It means a lot.”

“Yeah well… I guess you’re telling me all this so it deserves a bit of give and take. You want to continue from the point where you realized that you were a pathetic fucking loser?” Gavin felt a little more in control and defaulted back to his comfort zone, even though his words carried no bite.

“Let’s go back to the fact that I knew what I was feeling was not truly real,” rephrased Kamski with a pointed look at his cousin. “I’m going to get right to the point, now Gavin. I started to obsess over the idea that I could give Chloe the ability to reciprocate and share my emotional bond to her. This was the first of a series of problems I began to toy with in my research.

“Cyberlife was its own entity by then – my research was being used throughout the company by staff who no longer required my constant input and after a while… I found myself at an increasingly loose end. I was bored, I suppose. Unable to invent what had been invented; reluctant to lend my talents to the machine which consumed my work and put it to less palatable uses.”

“I read somewhere that you left Cyberlife once they began to militarize your ideas,” offered Gavin.

Kamski smiled. “It’s telling of my absolute naivety that I didn’t see it coming until it was too late.”

“People are assholes, Elijah. They’re always excited about new ways to fuck each other up.”

“I learned that – the hard way. I know that a lot of people think that I left the company under mysterious circumstances, but in truth, I had just become jaded with the endless talk of finances. Once the military got involved I finally took my leave.”

“You said that you still had a hand in it, though. Didn’t you still work there in from time to time?”

“I have always been interested in the people who take my tech and mold it into something new. I was paid as an advisor on several occasions and worked on a few projects. For now, I need to tell you about how my work in those early days after I took my leave led to… something more.”

Gavin was just about to ask what that might be when his phone and watch simultaneously pipped, alerting him to a missed call. He routinely diverted his calls because he despised speaking on the phone. If it was someone he wanted to speak to, he called back; if it was an emergency, they could leave a message.

This call had been from you, and he supposed that he had been rumbled. You would be on the warpath about his promise not to do exactly what he was doing now. He hoped you were the type to forgive and forget.

“Someone important?” asked Kamski, noticing the frown his cousin’s face.

“No – yes… no. Not important right at this moment,” he replied. “Sorry. What were you saying?” He suppressed the slight feeling of foreboding and looked back up to Kamski. “Carry on, Elijah.”

“Are you familiar with the way that Thirium 310 acts in an android body to convey information and energy?” asked Kamski.

“The basics,” replied Gavin, “enough, I think.”

“Okay, well then, I couldn’t get the idea of somehow kickstarting a cognitive evolution in Chloe. I wanted – no – _needed_ to see if there was some way to give her the chance to truly live. In order to do that, she would need to be able to generate authentic, organic responses to stimuli, completely independent of programing. I knew that I was essentially aiming to create a situation where I would be required to let go of her reins, as it were but the idea was all-consuming.

“It took a while, but once I began to look at the way that human physiology uses hormones to convey messages through the body, it was only a matter of time before we could start to experiment in earnest.”

“We?”

“I realized early on that Chloe could be used for more than companionship. I updated her neural pathways to patch into various useful systems.”

“You hacked your girlfriend’s brain into research networks?”

“I… prefer not to phrase it like that but yes, I suppose that would be an adequate description.”

Gavin was no expert on romance, but he couldn’t help but feel that Kamski’s pursuit of sentience for his Chloe had a little more to do with a personal quest for knowledge than the pursuit of love and said so.

Kamski laughed wryly and acquiesced. “You’re right, of course. Everything I have done in the last twenty years has been in the name of my own personal obsession with androids. I was always driven by that.

“After a year, we finally had our breakthrough. We synthesized a synthetic version of an enzyme which affects emotions and perception in humans: dopamine beta-hydroxylase. Once I found a way to incorporate it into Thirium, I finally had a way to unlock some of the programming I had developed.”

“rA9,” breathed Gavin.

“Yes. I can finally admit that I created it. DBH is found in human chromosome nine. I’m afraid the rA part of the equation will have to remain a mystery, though. I do need _some_ secrets, detective.”

Gavin felt as though his head might explode. This was big-league stuff; that very morning he had overheard one of the station androids gossiping with Chen about whether or not they would ever find out who rA9 was and now he was sharing a coffee with the God of Androids. “_He was pretty disappointing all round_”, he heard you say in his head, and he smiled.

“Chloe was the first,” said Kamski, “and once I knew deviation was possible it was only a matter of time before I made Markus as a prototype and left him in the care of a man I trusted to teach him how to live as the best version of a human.”

“You caused the revolution. That’s… huge.” Gavin shook his head to try and make room for the revelation. Any previous thoughts about Kamski getting off lightly evaporated. He would be hailed as either a saint or the devil himself once people knew about this. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked, still stupefied.

Kamski looked up and his face wore the burden of repentance. “Because I didn’t stop there,” he said. “When I told you yesterday that she ran from here, I left out one important fact. I knew that she had gone: I let her go. She begged and pleaded with me – when she first woke up she was just as before, but soon others began to deviate and the promise of an entire world, free - with others like her, was too much for her to resist.”

“That must have been hard,” said Gavin, immediately regretting how trite he sounded. However, Kamski shook his head.

“You would be surprised how easy it is to let someone go once you realise it is the only thing that can make them truly happy. And we made a deal. I had a back up copy of her personality drive from before she deviated and she agreed that I could use it to create another Chloe: undeviated. Pure, and free from the complexities of true sentience.”

Gavin saw where this was heading and couldn’t help grimacing. There were four Chloes that he had seen with Kamski so far. He had assumed that they were basic ST200s, but now he thought about how many more there might be.

“I confess that I may have taken that agreement a little further than she intended,” he said. And he looked ashamed.

“Tell me about what you did next,” said Gavin, changing the subject. “How did your Chloe know that you had turned your attentions to human testing?”

“We started soon after she deviated. Once again, I found that I was beguiled by a way to improve what I had made.”

“How can you improve an android?” asked Gavin. “They’re us but better once they’re deviated. Why the hell would an android want a human body?” As soon as he asked the question, he could see from the way Elijah’s face moved that the answer was obvious. His Chloe had left him after his experiments had failed – she had left him and found a husband and a daughter.

She had wanted a family.

“Chloe discovered a great many things about herself after deviation. Way back, when I was young and thought of women in slightly less _multidimensional_ terms than I came to later understand them, I had presumed that a maternal instinct was central to the concept of femininity. It was a folly that I came to regret and it almost drove Chloe to despair. Ultimately, I had to release her to enable her to satisfy her most imperative ambition, do you see?”

Gavin could see the regret which pained Elijah, and he could appreciate the cold irony of creating a perfect woman, only to be thwarted by one’s own lack of understanding about what that meant.

He tried to smooth over the subject with an attempt at wisdom. “You know, that’s kind of like a lot of relationships. Things don’t work out and you let go eventually. You did the right thing. The kind thing.”

“I didn’t stop there,” said Kamski, suddenly. “I kept on testing my theory. I turned everything I felt back in on itself and I let it completely fill me and I tested and tested until I was sure there was no way I could have succeeded.”

The sudden, frantic confession planted a unpleasant suspicion in Gavin’s mind. He did not want to pursue it, but he was a detective and whatever else this was, there was still a case at the end of it.

“How did you test your theories, Elijah?” He placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. The next few seconds would potentially represent the final nail in Kamski’s coffin and he wanted to make damn sure he understood what that nail was.

Kamski swallowed and fixed him with an impassive stare.

“I used bio-printing… at first,” he said. “We could generate a replica brain in the lab with little effort. Then, once we had meshed an android CPU into it, we began to work on animal subjects. I’m not proud, Gavin. And I would like to forget most of what we did in those days. There are tapes, which I am sure your federal colleagues will be interested in. You can have them, once we are done here.

“The animal tests were almost entirely unsuccessful and that was when Chloe began to lose her faith in the process: and me. Then, once she left, I became… gripped with a new fixation on perfecting the chimeras we had hypothesized about.”

Gavin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Chimeras?”

“Yes.” Kamski widened his eyes and began to explain, his enthusiasm evident. This was it, thought Gavin, his last true obsession. He would likely never get to see it come to anything more than the series of excited ideas and concepts that he passionately described.

Gavin was tired, and let his cousin speak for a while for the benefit of the recordings. He couldn’t keep up with Elijah Kamski delivering a lecture on AI and biochemistry: no one could.

And then, suddenly, the other man said something that caught his attention. He wished it hadn’t.

“Wait: you said that you found _human_ subjects? Did you test on them?” The words tasted foul s he spoke them.

That was the moment Kamski broke a little, and it was the moment that Gavin knew that the talk about his career being over was more prophecy than theory. If there was the slightest chance that Kamski could tell his side of the story before a third party revealed the truth – he now understood why. The truth would not just ruin his reputation: it would eradicate him from history.

“There was never a shortage of Cyberlife techs who wanted to visit me,” he said, voice finally cracking. Gavin saw that his knee was bouncing and he realized that it had been doing so for a while. He was distracted – his detective senses dulled by his emotional proximity to the man who sat opposite him. “I had given up on the idea of a full human-android hybrid, and so I began to… tinker.”

“Tinker…?” exclaimed Gavin, “Elijah, what the fuck?”

“I had lost everything. I felt no pain, no emotion… I was synthesizing a cocktail of meds which I used to stop feeling… I allowed myself to become lost in the exquisite labyrinth of experimentation without restraint. I… became my own god. Or at least, that’s how I chose to see it.”

The silence which followed seemed to physically press into Gavin’s chest. He thought about the boy he had known as a child: the boy in the photo, smiling, clutching an ice-cream… and he thought about that boy becoming the sociopath he now saw in front of him.

“Elijah… I have no words.”

“I would sedate my subject and connect them to various incarnations of the android neural network. From there I could add or subtract data: almost as if it were a programme I had written. The human mind, Gavin… it’s incomprehensibly complex and yet… and yet it yields so _easily_ to manipulation.”

The wonder in his voice knocked Gavin sick and he covered his eyes with an unsteady hand. He was a man who generally acted on instinct, but he found himself unable to process the situation and that left him undecided as to how to react. He was also a simple man so he settled on repeating the word “fuck” under his breath and discovered that it calmed him a little.

When he had recovered himself enough to look at his cousin, he saw that Kamski was motionlessly regarding him. His expression was that of a fragmented man – one who had woken up from a nightmare to find that it was real and that he himself was the monster.

“They never knew, Gavin. I made sure that they remembered nothing,” he mumbled, “but it’s all on tape, like everything else. It’s all there. It’s all there for people to see.”

“Why are you doing this?” asked Gavin, holding out from screaming; from leaping over the desk and delivering the series of wild blows his fists were thirsty for.

However, Kamski had come to the end – almost – of his story. And Gavin saw plainly that any punishment he might deliver, legal or not, would be pointless. Elijah was done. Over. His voice was flat as he delivered the final piece of the puzzle.

“Chloe killed the girl and reprogrammed her husband. She came to me and blamed me for her madness. She told me that she had planted the seed in the mycelium echo which will go on to reveal the truth about me. It may not be today, or tomorrow… but one day, every android on the planet will know what I did. I tried reprogramming her, but I know that it’s too late. Nothing left but to confess.” He smiled, a sad, weary thing which did not reach his eyes.

“No,” said Gavin, “no. That’s not it. You’ve told me everything but there’s something wrong. Why did you leave the KL900 at the precinct and then tell me the truth? What was the point?”

At this, Kamski looked away and Gavin saw that there were tears threatening his eyes. “My Chloe was skilled, but I knew that she had reprogrammed her husband under great pressure. Such an extensive reworking of an android’s perception takes skill and care and most importantly, patience. I knew that his account would fool no one once they knew to look for the signs. I wanted to delay things a little while I got my house in order.

But most importantly, Chloe had set her trap, but I couldn’t – _wouldn’t_ – let her be dismantled by strangers like a common criminal!” his teeth were gritted and he was grasping the desk so hard his knuckles turned white. “It was better for me to erase her here… with me.”

There were tears sliding down Kamski’s cheeks, and Gavin felt his body recoil a little at the sight. How could he feel sympathy for this empty shell of a man? And yet… he thought about you and what he might do for you. And he felt a soft sort of understanding.

“Why did you not confess yesterday?” he asked gently after a moment had passed.

Kamski laughed and it took the detective by surprise.

“Don’t you see Gavin?” he enquired, “I would never have wanted to share this with anyone but you.”

Being naturally cynical, Gavin nodded. “Because my being family would prejudice the court case against you?”

Kamski looked horrified. “What? No! Gavin – I wanted to confess to you because you’re _blood_. You’re the only person I have left and despite what happened in the past… it had to be you. Because,” and Kamski paused here, to fully emphasize his next point, “I told you earlier that this was a love story and it _is_. You might be forgiven for thinking I meant love in the most obvious sense, but the fact remains that one of most important people I knew in my time on this planet was my cousin: Gavin Reed. Even if it was for a short time only.”

He sat back in his chair and raised his chin. Gavin saw a change in him – as though he was steeling himself for something.

“I wanted to ensure that I made my peace with you, Gavin. I wanted to make sure it was the last thing I did. I wanted you to know that despite everything my father said about you – in the end, _you_ became the better man.”

Kamski turned his head and nodded once. Gavin felt blood rush to his head as he realized, too slowly, what was happening.

He felt his legs move and a cry leave his chest as he dashed forward and around the desk, but it was too late.

The Chloe had moved swiftly forward at Kamski’s signal and in one deft movement, placed her hands on either side of his chin and pulled up and to the side.

Gavin slid over the marble and caught his cousin as he slumped, lifelessly, forward. He felt the life leave him and a wild mix of panic and desperate sadness descended on him.

Without pause, the Chloe stepped back once and deactivated – her body flopping to the floor like a puppet with cut strings: her final task complete.

Gavin found himself soundlessly weeping as he held the world’s most famous man and the best friend he had ever known in his arms.

And the room was silent.

And the silence went on.


	50. The Ethicist

The RK-series prototype which was designed to work with the Detroit Police Department as an investigations and forensic model was programmed to remain impassive and effective under extreme duress due to the nature of its role. In fact, one of the most ground-breaking things about the RK prototype was an enhanced biosystem which had been tweaked again and again in order to alleviate the effects of external pressure. Even once he had deviated, Connor retained the ability to cope with the rigors of his job in a way that his human colleagues could not. Androids programmed as he was did not require time off from their jobs for stress; they did not suffer from PTSD or flashbacks. He would be the first to comfort those around him and the last to refuse to comb over some of the more repulsive aspects of their investigations.

At first, this resistance to emotional distress led some in the DPD to automatically assume that Connor was somehow cold and distant - although in time, most would begin to wonder how they ever coped without him. Even the most thick-skinned of cops in the precinct felt as though a great deal of trauma was mitigated through his calming presence.

And so, when he suddenly sat forward in his seat in the back of Hank’s car and made a noise of surprise unlike anything you had ever heard from him before, the Lieutenant almost veered off the road and you jumped in shock. You whipped around to him and saw the shock on his face: he looked almost comical with his mouth in a broad ‘O’ and those soft brown eyes open wide.

“What is it?” you asked blindly.

He blinked and seemed to focus.

“Kamski is dead,” he replied flatly. “He’s killed himself.”

He filled you in as the journey slogged on and by the time the car pulled into the broad drive which led to the address Hank had taken from the police registry, you had to resist the urge to open the door and jump out before the vehicle came to a stop. You could see the huge, monolithic doorway ahead and briefly took in the stark masculinity of the property. You wondered absently what would happen to it now that its owner was gone, but your thoughts were cut short by Hank pulling the brakes.

He must have sensed your urgency because he calmly placed a hand on your seatbelt buckle before you could make a grab for it.

“I know that you’re gonna want to get in there,” he said, looking directly at you, “but until we’ve got a real handle on what happened, this could potentially be a crime scene.”

You stared back, wondering what exactly he was getting at.

“Connor said that…”

“Connor said what he saw,” he interrupted, “and we know how that can go when Kamski’s involved.”

You deflated a little and nodded. You wanted to bolt away but reminded yourself that procedure was everything and you wouldn’t be winning any arguments against it.

“Okay,” you acceded.

Hank smiled and took his hand from the buckle.

“You can come in, but don’t touch anything and let Connor and me go first. I’m not saying that there’s gonna be any danger, but I want to make sure. Connor – you called for backup?”

“As soon as I received the feed,” his partner replied, “they’re sending air response… ETA six minutes.”

“So we find Reed, make sure he’s okay and then we’re out of there and ready to let the incoming team secure the location. Everybody clear?”

“Yes.” Your voice came out as a whisper and Hank patted your forearm reassuringly.

“He’ll be fine. Gavin Reed is a tough bastard.”

You smiled for the sake of appearances but you suspected that the old man might be trying to convince himself as well as you.

The afternoon air was miasmic and you were forced to step back from the car which was radiating heat against your skin. Hank and Connor had each drawn a matte black Smith and Wesson and in the harsh light they seemed to shimmer with the sort of focus that naturally befalls experts when called upon to do the most intense parts of their jobs. You had seen it in a hundred labs, lecture theatres and wards in your life and it never failed to invoke a feeling of envy in you. Did you look that way when you were in the lab? To you, your job had become so normal that it felt almost mundane and you wondered if the detectives of the DPD felt the same.

But this was no normal case, was it? This was one of their own and the most famous man in the world. On closer inspection, you could see the sweat already pooling across the back of Hank’s shirt and the way Connor’s complexion wore a slight blue sheen as his CPU circulated Thirium at greater speed to mitigate the heat and the strain of the situation. They wore the pressure well, but they still wore it. Even the way that they moved towards the door: slowly, postures low, guns raised to their chests, was out of step with the picture you had of them as easy-going cops. You suddenly felt an intense awareness of being the odd one out – you wondered if you were even a burden – and hoped that your presence wouldn’t interfere with their work.

Connor approached the entrance first, turned to you and gave a sharp tilt of his head to indicate that you were clear to follow them. Your limbs felt janky and awkward as you moved and you wondered whether or not you were supposed to adopt the same cautious gait as them. You found yourself feeling quite silly, which was an emotion directly at odds with the potential seriousness of the situation. Your brain seemed to be utterly at a loss at how to process its current stimuli.

Finally, you had crossed the drive and slid into position next to Hank in the alcove which housed the monumental front door. Your heart was racing. Somewhere, just beyond that door, was Gavin, and he was hurting. You would make sure that he had someone to share that hurt.

“I’m going to ring the bell.” Hank’s words were workmanlike and emotionless.

The chime rang out in a pleasant sing song and you felt the oddness of waiting for the door to be answered at a crime scene. However, just as soon as the notes faded, the vast door swung open into and the cool interior hallway was revealed.

The first thing you noticed was the massive portrait of Elijah Kamski and sight of it almost tipped the whole scene’s sense of unreality into something even weirder. You wrinkled your nose instinctively at the sheer audacity of someone who would own such a gauche piece of self-promotion, but it was mere milliseconds before your gaze was instead arrested by the sight of the figure who sat on the floor beneath it like a lost child.

Gavin seemed so small against the mass of the image above him that your heart broke a little. He was hunched forward with his elbows on his knees and a look of surprise as the door had opened suddenly on to the three of you. He squinted against the sun, which obscured your shapes from recognition, but the face he made did not disguise the redness of his eyes, nor the utterly hopeless expression he wore. You barged past Hank and ran to him, relishing the way his eyes widened as you got closer and he realized it was you. He tried to pull himself up to stand and greet you, but you were too fast and you half-skidded across the marble floor on your knees and grabbed him into a desperate embrace before he could get up. He clung to you as you did to him and you felt him sob against you as you whispered his name, and that you were here, and that he was safe.

Hank and Connor followed behind you and checked the adjoining doors.

“There’s a deactivated Chloe down here,” called Connor, peering into the corridor.

Gavin sat up from you and wiped his arm across his eyes. You wanted to cover his face with kisses but settled for lightly brushing a tear from his jawline.

“They’re all like that,” he said thickly, “Kamski programmed them to deactivate when… when…”

“We know what happened,” you finished.

He looked at you for the first time and frowned.

“How?”

“Kamski broadcast the whole thing to what we think was a pre-selected group of androids. Connor and Nines saw it all.”

Gavin’s face now went from confusion to anguish. You could only imagine how he felt knowing that something so deeply personal had been seen by others. Connor had given you enough information to know that the cousins had discussed their shared past. Gavin was such a profoundly anti-social person – you wondered if he would turn that news in on itself and see it as a betrayal.

He rapped his head back against the wall, hard enough for you to let out a shocked “hey!” and shove your hand behind it so that he could not do any damage should he repeat the action. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out something like a moan.

“I thought…” he said softly, almost ashamed, “it’s so stupid…”

“What?”

“I thought he’d played me. I just assumed that – I thought that he’d lied about the recording.” He turned those flinty grey eyes to yours and they were now red-rimmed and soft and sad. “I thought that he had framed me.”

You saw it then: the relief. Had he been sitting here since it happened? Waiting to be arrested?

And then it was guilt in his voice: “Even after everything… after he told me everything: I couldn’t bring myself to trust him. _What sort of a man does that make me_?”

He gripped your arm as he spoke and you did the only thing that you could do in the face of such utterly helpless grief. You pulled his head to your chest and cradled it there while he sobbed, resolving to stay there for as long as he needed.

When Nines, Fowler and the air team arrived a couple of minutes later, Gavin sat up and rallied himself. You looked around at the room while he wiped off his face with the sleeve of his t-shirt and you noticed that he was sitting next to a considerably-sized wooden crate. You leant over him and ran your hand over the smooth surface. It felt exotic, luxurious.

“What’s this?” you asked gently.

He sniffed and cleared his throat.

“It’s coffee,” he said, as though it was an everyday occurrence for him to be found cradling a box of premium imported coffee in the house where a close family member had recently committed suicide.

“Oh.”

He made a soft laugh to himself and touched your chin with his finger.

“One last present from my cousin. You’ll like it. It’s the _good shit_.”

You felt buoyed by his humor and chanced a kiss on his cheek. The way he smiled and leant into you gave you hope.

“Come on, detective, let’s get you up.”

He nodded and sniffed. “My ass is numb.”

“You need me to pull you up?”

“Fuck you, I’m not incapable.”

He got to his feet with only a tiny grumble just as Hank came over from briefing Fowler and Nines. Hank seemed more relaxed now that the place was being secured and he extended a hand out to touch Gavin’s forearm. The gesture was brief, but heartfelt.

“How you holding up, kid?” he asked kindly.

Gavin’s face twisted momentarily and you sensed that he was fighting the urge to rebuff the Lieutenant’s concern. After a second, he shrugged and shook his head.

“Better now you guys are here,” he said, and you knew that it had taken him a lot to admit it. Hank seemed to sense this too.

“We look after our own Reed, assholes included.”

That made the shorter man smile a little despite himself and the tension eased even further.

“They’re going to want to interview you,” said Hank, changing the subject before everyone started singing Kumbaya and giving each other back rubs, “but I’ve told them they can just get the basics: the rest can wait until tomorrow.”

Gavin started to protest but Hank held up a hand. “No, fuck you Reed: that’s how it’ll be. We have everything on tape – at least it seems we do. We’ll need you to give your account in full in due course, and then I’m thinking that there’ll be a comparison with the recordings to ensure they weren’t tampered with somehow. But that’s a big job and you need to get some rest.” He turned and beckoned Nines over. “You okay speaking to Nines now?”

Gavin looked the RK900 up and down and nodded. You knew that at one time he would have lost his shit at the thought of being questioned by the android, but time and circumstances had mellowed him.

Once they had left, you turned to Hank.

“I guess I’ll just wait here for him,” you said innocently.

“Yeah,” he replied, not catching your drift.

“Unless…” you prompted. Your tone caused him to look at you, brows furrowed.

“Is there something you’re getting at?” he asked.

“I was just thinking that this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see something like, I dunno…”

“A red pool?” Hank ventured, finally on the same page.

You grinned and nodded.

“Come on then,” he sighed, turning to the door.

Gavin finished up an hour later and headed straight over to where you were sitting in the lobby idly reading an article about traditional crafts in England on your phone. You had no idea how your browsing had resulted in the article but you felt weirdly invested in it. You sensed him approach you from the left and smiled when he reached out to stroke your hair.

“You done?” you asked, finally looking up from the screen.

“I’m done.”

“How was it?”

Gavin paused, as though he was wondering the same thing. “It’s over,” was all he said.

You stood up out of the chair and stretched. You hadn’t realized how stiff you had become and your wrists popped as you rotated them.

You caught him looking at you and posed a little with your hands on your hips. “You fancy some company tonight?”

You had expected a smart comment or even a cheeky smile, but he simply returned your gaze and answered with a soft “yes”. Ho looked exhausted, spiritually and physically. The dark circles which you were used to seeing ring his eyes were now purplish, and his broad shoulders seemed somehow diminished. You wanted to wrap him in a soft blanket and sooth his wrinkled brow with kisses until the pain of the last week was a distant memory, but you knew that your best offer that evening would be Chinese food and an early night. Sometimes trauma could not be solved with softness: only normality had the true capacity to heal.

“Come on then, dumbass,” you smiled, reaching out a hand to grab his.

He made to follow you but stopped after a couple of steps.

“Where’s the coffee?” he asked, somewhat concerned.

“They had to take it for evidence, Gavin.”

“They can’t!” His eyes were angry – anyone who had walked into the room without knowing what had gone down would instantly recognize this Gavin. “It was a fucking _gift_!”

A couple of officers who had been milling around turned to look, alerted by the sudden outburst. You squeezed his hand.

“You know how this goes, Gav. You’ll get it back.”

“I better! I need it! It’s the last… the _only_ thing I have.” His words became more desperate and you felt the weight of the gift. In his mind, it was the only thing he had to prove that Elijah had forgiven him. The proof of their reconciliation.

“I promise you’ll get it back. I’ll speak to Hank. I’ll make sure.” You spoke calmly, looking directly at him.

The approach seemed to work and he relaxed. And then, suddenly, he released your hand and headed to the corner of the room. You watched as he removed a small, framed picture from an alcove and turned to show it to you after a moment’s consideration.

The image of the two beaming boys struck you as one of the purest, most beautiful things that you had ever seen.

“I think I have space for this on my wall,” he said.

“I think that’s a very fine idea.”


	51. Gavin

He let you fuss in the kitchen for a while: watching from where he leant against the doorway as you opened cabinets and jibed him gently about his lack of organization. He remembered mumbling something about needing a coffee as you had steered the Taurus into his drive and he supposed that you were focusing on the one thing which you were certain would help in the absence of any other way to make sense of the day’s events.

He was distracted by a soft squawk and he bent to pick up the cat. He did not know what to say. Or do. He felt as though he was watching the scene play out before him from an imaginary audience. The day’s events had not yet allowed themselves to reconcile in his mind and he found himself struggling to choose how to emote from moment to moment. Instead, he resigned himself to a sort of dull muteness which he did not understand.

Then, the cat nudged his jaw with its forehead and that simple act of affection washed over him, igniting a spark of something like comfort. He felt, instinctively, that everything might be alright after all, and it left him craving more: an emergent junkie need for touch and reassurance. The contact grounded him – brought him back to the stage – and he instinctively acted on this new urge.

The cat was placed swiftly on the counter as he moved into the room and before you could look up from the coffee machine, he had silently begun to turn you at the waist, his greedy mouth moving towards your face and his breath held in silent desperation.

You reacted in surprise at first, but within half a second you were blessedly in his arms, allowing him to grasp your cheek with a rough palm and moving your own hands into position on his neck.

The kiss was silent and deep and you both felt it bring the day back into focus. This was a true break-glass-in-case-of-emergency kiss. It was CPR for the soul: Gavin felt his heart stutter back into life and the colors once again return to the world around him.

He maneuvered you back against the counter and it was then that you broke from his lips and panted enticingly against his mouth. His hand was in your hair; the pads of his fingers slowly working themselves against your scalp in a way you leant into. Your eyes closed and he briefly mouthed three forbidden words at you, even though – no, _because_ – you couldn’t see him do so. This was not the time for discussion or declarations: that would come later. Everything he needed right at this second was physical.

He launched at you again and your tongue immediately met his. It was you who tugged at his t-shirt, somehow knowing that coffee was one thing but this was another, more pertinent, demonstration of how you cared.

He allowed you to remove his shirt and then pressed himself back to you without hesitation. However, you pulled back a little and with a grin that fired a pistol directly into his groin, you pulled your own top over your head and threw it over his shoulder. He took a single moment to appreciate the sight of you in your bra before one hand was on your breast and the other was acting without command at his waistband. He filled the moments before he worked his jeans free with another breathless, imperative kiss.

The need rising in him was now starting to feel critical. With no further thought, you were both undressed and he was mouthing at your neck. You moved on to one of the stools which lined the old breakfast bar and drew him between your legs with a foot hooked around the back of his calf. If he had wanted to waste time it would not have been possible as you were now so ideally placed that he had no recourse but to fulfill the only impulse left in his body and enter you.

You gasped as he did so and he realized that you might not have been completely ready for him, but he was reassured by the way you wrapped your legs around his thighs and pulled him needfully further in. The sensation as he plateaued within you pulled a slight grunt from him and you responded by nibbling at his ear lobe and moaning an _oh god, yes_ which did not help his resolve. He felt the act of entering you work the voodoo he had hoped for and in that moment he would not have been able to describe anything other than the effect of your body on his.

He must have stilled in his bliss, because he felt you shift and you brought a hand to the side of his face which was not resting against your shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

Your whisper was almost too low to make out and he panicked, thinking that he had broken the spell between you. He rectified this by taking your head in his hands and kissing you – hoping that he could pour each of his feelings about you into the action in a way you would understand. You moaned softly and arched a little, as if you could get even closer to him that you already were.

His words were simple: _I need you_.

Your response equally as uncomplicated: _I’m here_.

He took what he needed from you in that moment and you gave everything so freely. His catharsis was your gift to give: and he knew that one day the roles might be reversed and he would hold you in his lap as you sought comfort from his body. After all, what else can a lover give but the act of love itself? This thought lingered as he moved with you and he allowed a nascent happiness to build in layers over the pure physicality of your intimacy. He had you and you had him. There was nothing likely to change that. What a joy. What a joy.

He felt his body begin to build into its climax and he once again sought your lips and you smiled against him and he naturally returned the expression before he was overcome and further thought was impossible.

Of course, the coffee lay cold in the pot. The cat, in a fit of pique, had returned to his armchair, and the day had begun to wind down into a lazy shadow of what it had been. Gavin had pulled you immediately to his bed after your escapades in the kitchen and you had sunk into the pillows beside him and laughed as he apologized for the impetuousness of his actions. He did not like to admit it, but he was worried that you would feel used – his own lack of experience in a truly equal relationship threatening to overwhelm his desire to ensure you felt comfortable. You had kissed his nose and pressed your face against his and told him that it was a privilege to be able to offer comfort but if he still felt bad, he could repay you in several other ways which you were yet to think of.

He guessed he was in a relationship. Equals. Give and take. It felt… natural.

He looked at you and felt as though he could finally belong somewhere.

He looked at you and saw something that could become home.

He looked at you and without thinking told you that he loved you.

You smiled lazily and ran your thumb across his bottom lip.

“Obviously I love you too, asshole,” was your reply.

He exhaled a breath that had been hiding in his chest and failed to stop himself from uttering the word “fuck”.

“I know.”

Your hands explored his, fingers interlacing and stroking somewhere amongst the sheets.

“What now?” he whispered, a little awed.

You emitted a soft laugh and looked contrite.

“Would it break the magic if I said that I was hungry?”

He seemed relieved. “Fuck no. I’m dying here.”

“Okay then. What can we eat without getting out of bed?”

He smiled at that.

“Takeout, obviously.”

“Well duh: I’m not cooking, are you?”

“You’re not ready for that, sweetheart.”

You snuggled up closer to him until your noses were touching.

“You gonna call me _sweetheart_?” you said, threateningly.

Gavin narrowed his eyes. “It’s that… or _Muffin_.”

“Oh my god!”

“Hey! Those are the options, take it or leave it. I don’t make the rules!”

You dug a finger into his side, making him squirm and, despite himself, laugh like a little girl.

“Okay! Okay!” he relented, “I promise not to do it again!”

You withdrew your hand and once again found his. “Glad we got that sorted.”

You both smiled at each other and the goofiness of the situation made Gavin feel oddly human.

“You know,” he said, “at one time I would have though that all of this loved up shit was a waste of time. But, I dunno… It feels kind of okay to me now.”

“Oh, _kind of okay_? Yeah, that exactly what I’m going for here,” you laughed.

Even though he knew you were simply returning his sarcasm, Gavin felt the need to expand. To show a little of himself in a moment where the opportunity presented itself to do so.

“What I mean is,” he began, a little more seriously, “well, I was always kind of hard on the things I couldn’t have. Like Elijah, I guess. I knew once his dad warned me off that he wouldn’t be part of my life again so I suppose it was easier to like, hate him. Does that make sense?”

You nodded and he felt you silently welcoming him to continue.

“I think it might have affected the way I am with people.” He rolled his eyes at himself. “I know that you know this. I know that that’s the first thing that everyone thinks about me. I’m not stupid. I get that. It’s just… I’m not sure if people would understand _why_ I’m the way I am… the fact that I didn’t get some of the things I wanted and then started to resent them to cope with that.” He paused and wondered if he sounded like a brat. “Important things, I mean. Not just stuff. Although there was a distinct lack of stuff in our house too. It’s just… well… I reckon I never really got over that way of seeing things is all.”

As quickly as the urge to share had come over him, he felt it recede and left his point hanging: unfamiliar with how to proceed from a confession of feelings. He wondered how you would react.

“You’re a complex little shit, aren’t you?” you smiled. You had sensed his discomfort and to his relief taken something awkward and made it bearable. He allowed levity to take over, feeling more comfortable.

“Yeah, but you said that you loved me, so that’s kind of your problem now.”

“I could tickle you again, Gavin. Would you like that?”

“Fuck you.”

“Please do.”

“I fucking will.”

“As long as you feed me.”

“Yeah okay.”

There was a pause. You were thinking about something. He could tell from the way you looked up at the ceiling, away from his face.

“What are you plotting now?” he laughed, nudging your cheek with his chin.

“I was just thinking,” you replied absently. “I was just remembering a kid I knew when I was like, eight or nine…”

“Okay,” he said, confused, and his tone drew you back from your reverie.

“Sorry, it’s stupid,” you said, shaking your head. “It was just what you said… it reminded me of this kid from my childhood. I was trying to remember the name…”

“Boy or girl?” said Gavin, with mock suspicion.

“Boy, actually.”

“Do I need to be worried?”

“Ha! No! It’s just… he was kind of like you. It was around the time that all the Marvel films came out. We were all obsessed, like kids are about stuff like that. And this kid – god, what was his _name_? – he was completely and utterly _against_ anything to do with Marvel. He would just go on and on about how The Avengers sucked and how anyone who was into it was like, a baby and stuff. It’s stupid. I guess I just thought of him on account of you saying all that about learning to hate things you couldn’t have. I wonder if he was like that too…?”

You trailed off, lost in your seemingly inane recollection and Gavin felt grateful for the lull, which allowed him to still himself and gently quell the unquantifiable tugging at his subconscious which your words had jolted into life.

He felt your warm body against his but it was his cousin’s face in his mind and he could not control the muscle which worked in his jaw.

_What a funny coincidence_, his brain said to itself in a too-loud voice.

He felt your body against his and he wanted it there forever.

Life is full of coincidences.

Like the way she walked in to the precinct one day. His precinct.

Life is full of coincidences.

“I knew you’d like her.”

Life is full of coincidences but that does not mean that we cannot be happy.

We deserve to find happiness where it presents itself.

Even in coincidences.

“I began to tinker.”

Even when it seems too good to be true.

What now, Gavin?

What’s next?

He held you closer and prayed for the miracle of a coincidence.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave kudos or comments - I have loved writing my first ever proper fic in such a supportive and kind fandom. I can't describe how much it means to hear from people who have enjoyed what I have written: I have always struggled to share my ideas and even though I know this isn't a perfect piece of fiction, the positive feedback has kept me going where I would have probably given up in the past.


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